ProgressOhio

Phil de Vellis, last seen cavorting around the state as Sherrod Brown's internet communications director, is ParkRidge47. You know this person better as the mysterious creator of the anti-Hillary 1984 advertisement.

I swear, a horse leaves his computer for a few hours and hell breaks loose (which I believe is my role anyway). Still, we got a head's up from a reader and have been watching the event unfold for the past two hours.

Okay, first: Phil, congrats on a brilliant piece. You should take credit for it. Further, I think you're dead on with this statement:

And the underlying point was that the old political machine no longer holds all the power.

That was one of my points the other day: 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.

But Phil worked for Blue State Digital, which doesn't take kindly to their employees acting out politically in public. Given their line of work, that's understandable. As a result, Phil's out of a job.

Blue State is contracted by the Obama campaign to handle some technical aspects of their online operations, but not creative endeavors. But this will give the Clinton campaign, a group wonderful skilled in conflation, smug assurance that they were right all along and damn if Obama really isn't just the same ol' with a new face.

Phil's unmasking probably shortens the impact arc of the ad, but it still spent two weeks floating around the blogosphere with a few million eyeballs on it.

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.

X-posted at the new PBD