Maybe going viral isn't the best thing for the GOP after all
Great news for the GOP!
Republicans can already claim a 2014 victory in one of the fastest growing campaign battlegrounds: viral videos.
Fueled by partisan frustration with Obamacare and edgy online spots featuring everything from wedding dresses to pig castration, GOP ad makers have cooked up their own digital secret sauce for getting the word out about their slate of candidates.
Edgy! Pig castration! Even shooting drones! And of course, wedding dresses.
Oh, those wedding dresses. (If you must watch it, you can press play at the top of this post.)
To be fair, that GOP video did go somewhat viral—at last check, it had surpassed 340,000 views. That's not mega-viral, but it's still a lot of views. The thing is, Republicans are probably lucky that it didn't get more views, because that video sucked.
It's not just my opinion—ratings on that video are running nearly 7:1 negative. Compare that to our 2012 "Mitt Romney debates himself" video (created by yours truly) which has nearly 2.3 million views and for which ratings are running nearly 13:1 positive. Now that's a viral video. (Excuse me while I go pat myself on the back.)
Let's take another example of how Republicans are supposedly winning the viral video game: Senate Candidate Gil Fulbright. Except Fulbright isn't a real candidate. And you have to go back 3 months to find a video with more than 100,000 views. Plus, allow me to repeat: Fulbright is not a real candidate.
Arguably the gold standard for 2014 viral hits is this spot by Montana House candidate Matt Rosendale. In the video, Rosendale "shoots" a government drone which was supposedly spying on him. Not the greatest production values, but I'll admit it was an entertaining spot, and it not only got nearly 600,000 views, but had nearly a 3:1 positive rating on YouTube. Sadly for Rosendale, however, it didn't do him any good. Just a few weeks after posting the video, he lost his party's nomination for Congress. But hey, he got himself a viral video. So it wasn't a total loss.
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