Intellectual Property Law

In a few short hours, senator Barack Obama will deliver the most anticipated -- and perhaps pivotal -- speech of the 2008 presidential election so far.

The Illinois senator and Democratic presidential candidate's speech is expected to address the issue of race and politics in America.

It's an issue that Obama's family pastor Jeremiah Wright has turbocharged with his incendiary sermon-performances, which recently made their way onto YouTube.

Pundits see Tuesday's speech as a form of a test of Obama's political mettle -- can his rhetoric and his reasoning really transcend the divisive politicking that threatens to blow up the Democratic party's chances of winning in November?

But Obama's speech will only be the beginning of a longer test in this YouTube-enabled world. The question is whether his campaign can battle the cultural perceptions that could build up among the electorate as a result of the inevitable editorial videos and mash-ups that have already started to proliferate on the internet.   The videos combine many of the anti-Obama memes that have been swirling around on the Internet, the idea that he's secretly a radical muslim (obviously he's Christian,) he won't sing the national anthem, etc etc.

A recent article in the New York Times magazine suggests not. Though the article focuses on rumors vs, facts, I would imagine that its thesis could equally be applied to both insinuations and smears spread virally through web videos. 

Thus the online propaganda war has already begun. Amazingly, 14 of the 20 top viral videos on the Viral Video Chart tracking service are about Obama.

Consider this:

• The top video is Fox footage of an angry and sarcastic Wright sermon about living in a country "controlled by, and run by rich white people."
• A video ranked second, in stark contrast, is Will.I.Am's "Yes We Can" music video, set to an inspirational Obama speech.
• The third-ranked video is MSNBC's Keith Olbermann diatribe against senator Hillary Clinton's campaign for not dismissing supporter Geraldine Ferraro's controversial Obama comment, as well as other perceived racially-tinged incidents, in a more direct and strident manner.   
• The 17th-ranked video is footage of Obama reciting the Pledge of Allegiance with his hand on his heart.

The blogosphere is eating it up. Obama has surpassed Clinton as bloggers' latest obsession in terms of buzz as measured by online monitoring service Wonkosphere. 

All this talk online, of course could affect the superdelegates' opinion of how electable Obama is in November.

So perhaps this could be the first real "YouTube Election" after all.