Just as quickly as the Hillary/Obama/Apple/1984 YouTube spot made the NBC Nightly News and questions were raised about the identity of its creator, the anonymous “ParkRidge47″has been identified and has already made a now-cursory stop at Huffington Post:
Hi. I’m Phil. I did it. And I’m proud of it.
He’s Phillip de Vellis and he’s now formerly with Blue State Digital. They made the right call in letting him go, already handling this with more confidence (not to mention web savvy) than EchoDitto did with their resident McCainiac, Nicco Mele. Apart from getting fired, de Vellis will probably emerge a winner. Unless, of course, Hillary Clinton actually wins the presidency.
But this isn’t the first time Phil de Vellis been suspected of surrepititous intra-party hacking hackery. The name stuck out to me because I reported on that alleged subterfuge early last year, when de Vellis was with the Sherrod Brown Senate campaign. The details are too tedious to recount here, but an IP address associated with the Brown campaign was identified as the source of some nasty comments — and some Ohio bloggers accused de Vellis of being responsible.
You can read the full back story here and here, but this will do:
[C]omments from anonymous users with names like Thisblogishorseshit and JewsforJesus started making antagonistic comments. Both suspected Brown’s new Internet spokesperson and blogger Philip de Vellis. (Brown oversees the pro-Dem blog Grow Ohio.) De Vellis was a recent hire, and had been dispatched to put Brown’s side of the story on the blogs. They couldn’t prove de Vellis had done so. Their evidence was circumstantial at best — with one big exception.
[Blogger Russell] Hughlock compared the IP address on the comments to the IP address from e-mails he’d previously received from de Vellis — and found an exact match. We contacted the Brown campaign ourselves about it, and while they were reticent to discuss accusations made by bloggers aligned with their opponent, they did take partial responsibility for the postings. De Vellis denied being the author, and pointed out the IP address listed on the comments serve the entire staff of about 30, but the campaign has acknowledged that the comments did indeed originate from their office. De Vellis said he was certain no one on Brown’s Internet team had posted any of the messages, but said: “We haven’t done an in-depth investigation.” Rather, the Brown campaign quietly circulated a policy memo: Interns and staffers may no longer contribute to any blog save for Grow Ohio. This is a direction other campaigns will follow, lest they have to learn the same lesson.
Who knows if De Vellis was responsible for the furtive comments back then. But I’d say the last sentence holds up pretty well.
P.S. Buckeye State Blog, who remembers him as well but not fondly, doubts de Vellis’ authorship claim: “Phil claims he made it? I say don’t buy everything you read.”
P.P.S. Joe Tobacco points out in a comment on this post and at Cadillac Tight that Jerome Armstrong points out today that he personally hired de Vellis for the Brown campaign. He stands by de Vellis, and is unhappy with Blue State Digital for letting him go:
I know the founders of Blue State Digital, and this was a petty move on their part– an over-reaction to say the least. Phil’s a big reason why Sherrod Brown kicked ass in Ohio in 2006, he made a remarkable video adaption, and BSD could have simply said they accept his resignation.
As I argued last summer, statements like this lead me to doubt Armstrong is as savvy as he’s given credit for. And just like that time, one only need look to the first comment of that very MyDD post for a more practical assessment:
This baseless, pointless ad divides the Democratic Party, and undermines Clinton’s chances if she eventually wins the nomination.
And as to the firing itself, Krempasky is spot on:
[W]hen it became clear that an employee made the video, given their client base and relationships – it makes total sense to sack him.
Does Armstrong understand that Obama is more important to BSD than Phil de Vellis? Maybe Armstrong didn’t give it that much thought. But maybe that’s why it’s so easy to dismiss him.
William: Note as well that Jerome Armstrong himself brought De Vellis to the Brown campaign. Those sort of comments definitely have a “netroots” feel to them, don’t they?
What is frightening is that in the future with technology growing like it is, you could have a Philip de Vellis creating a lifelike video of a candidate that is entirely fabricated. Who knows what the truth will be. Is the candidate denying the allegation or is it a blogger creating the rouse?