Blue State Digital, Indeed

In a post earlier today on Power Line, on the 1984 Hillary ad, John Hinderaker wrote:

Hillary Clinton laughed the video off, saying that she was glad it distracted attention from the one of her singing the National Anthem. Barack Obama said his campaign had nothing to do with it, and noted that they wouldn’t have had the technical capacity to do make the video.

When I read that paragraph, I instantly thought, they don’t? When every kid today has done his first mash-up video by age 14, I’d be pretty surprised if the Obama team doesn’t include someone with some fairly serious video chops.

Guess what? They do. Or at least, they did:

The mystery creator of the Orwellian YouTube ad against Hillary Rodham Clinton is a Democratic operative who worked for a digital consulting firm with ties to rival Sen. Barack Obama (news, bio, voting record).

Philip de Vellis, a strategist with Blue State Digital, acknowledged in an interview with The Associated Press that he was the creator of the video, which portrayed Clinton as a Big Brother figure and urged support for Obama’s presidential campaign.

De Vellis, 33, said he resigned from the firm on Wednesday after he learned that he was about to be unmasked by the HuffingtonPost.com., a liberal news and opinion Internet site.

Blue State designed Obama’s Web site and one of the firm’s founding members, Joe Rospars, took a leave from the company to work as Obama’s director of new media. The connection to the campaign is likely to be a setback for Obama, who has cultivated an image as politician who wants to rise above bare-knuckle politics.

More details here.

It’s curious to read recent articles comparing the ad to the Swift Vets of 2004–they at least were eager to let you know exactly who they were and what their chief issue with Senator Kerry was.

Update: Found the quote I was looking for. Ironically, it’s from an Obama advisor:

Rich Masters, a Democratic strategist supporting Obama, told FOX News that the ad represents a new day in politics, but not one that voters should welcome. He called the ad shameful and part of “the politics of personal destruction.”

“For all we know, Swift Boat Veterans For Truth produced it,” Masters said, suggesting that those who stand to benefit from the publicity are not Obama and his supporters, but Republicans or another Democrat further down the pack.

Or your own man.