Obama Media

Who is Phil de Vellis?

March 22, 2007 on 4:37 am | In obama, YouTube, de vellis | No Comments

The internet (well, at least a geeky section of it that is full of media and political junkies) is atwitter over the Huffington Post’s crowd-sourced revelation that the Vote Different 1984 video “was the work of Philip de Vellis, who was the Internet communications director for Sherrod Brown’s 2006 Senate campaign, and who now works at Blue State Digital, a company created by members of Howard Dean’s Internet Team.”

In his video and his Huff Post post, Phil questions Hillary’s “conversation” emphasis. (I’ve expressed similar thoughts myself.)

The specific point of the ad was that Obama represents a new kind of politics, and that Senator Clinton’s “conversation” is disingenuous. And the underlying point was that the old political machine no longer holds all the power….This ad was not the first citizen ad, and it will not be the last. The game has changed.

For what will undoubtedly be a brief moment in time, we have relatively little information on just who Phil de Vellis is. Wikipedia is no help, yet. Not even de Vellis’ Huff Post bio says anything. He has a blip TV page, which looks like an online resume with two clips and a CNN profile of presidential social networking. We know that he, or someone using his name, has worked on the Wal-Mart Watch campaign, a project driven by the SEIU and others. We know he worked on Sherrod Brown’s campaign, where he pissed off some people.

Psychobilly Democrat, who knows Phil’s Ohio work, praises the video and notes the:

…distributed, decentralized content which lies in part outside the control of campaigns. Those that embrace and utilize this new wrinkle will flourish among those that turn to the internet for their political news. Those that don’t get it won’t; it’s that simple.

Blue State is contracted by the Obama campaign to handle some technical aspects of their online operations, but not creative endeavors. …

Phil’s unmasking probably shortens the impact arc of the ad…It’s too bad de Vellis wasn’t working at a media shop. If he had been, the creation and ownership of that ad would have launched his career.

Dan has more details on Phil.