"ParkRidge47" not so grassroots after all

There has been much hype over the last few weeks surrounding the now-infamous attack ad against Hillary Clinton posted on YouTube by "ParkRidge47," the name being a sly reference to the Chicago suburb where Clinton grew up and the year of her birth, 1947.




The ad was a repurposing of Apple's famous 1984 ad that used George Orwell's "1984" images of Big Brother as a slam against IBM. Only now, Hillary is Big Brother. The post became the latest YouTube sensation, getting over 1.5 million views.

Despite the fact that the ad ends with a plug for Barack Obama's Web site, Obama's camp denied any involvement, as did all the other campaigns.

Thus, it was initially hailed as a milestone in grassroots campaigning, an ardent concerned voter taking their voice to the Internet in a novel and unprecedented way.

Naturally, newspapers in both print and online proceeded to wildly speculate as to who "ParkRidge47" really was. Some thought that it might be the same hard-right wingers who concocted the Swiftboat ads in 2004, in an attempt to take down both Clinton and Obama, who had vowed to run a clean campaign.

Some thought it might have been liberal blogger Arianna Huffington or one of her cohorts at The Huffington Post. In response, Huffington sought to clear her name by assembling a team of 30 or so techies to track down the true publisher.

Alas, it turned out to be a campaign professional after all - Philip de Vellis, who worked for Blue State Digital, a firm that's been retained by the Obama campaign. But it appears that de Vellis did this entirely on his own in his spare time, without the knowledge of Blue State or the Obama camp.

Nonetheless, de Vellis was immediately fired by Blue State Digital when the company became aware of his actions. And this wasn't the first time de Vellis was suspected of making an unauthorized video. The same thing happened last year with Sherrod Brown's (successful)Senate campaign, but de Vellis denied any involvement.

That Senate campaign was low-key enough that they gave up on the investigation, but a presidential campaign is relentless and no-holds-barred.

Regardless of whether de Vellis' actions were rogue or authorized, it has undoubtedly tainted Obama's campaign - probably the first of many more hits the campaign will take in the coming months.

It should also serve as a warning to anyone posting controversial content on the Internet who has delusions of anonymity.

This guy was a seasoned veteran of political campaigns and a professional technophile, who obviously knows how to cover his tracks far better than the average citizen. But he still got tracked down eventually, proving nothing is untraceable if the investigating party wants to get at you bad enough.