Christie Draws National Audience With YouTube Clips

by **TexasBlue** Tue Nov 30, 2010 7:36 pm

Christie Draws National Audience With YouTube Clips

Richard Perez-Pena
New York Times
November 30, 2010

A little shaky, the camera shows Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey shedding his sport coat at a town-hall-style meeting, as a teacher criticizes what she sees as his attacks on her profession. He begins to respond, the woman tosses her head in frustration, and Mr. Christie goes for the jugular.

“I stood here and very respectfully listened to you; if what you want to do is put on a show and giggle every time I talk, well then I have no interest in answering your question,” he says, as the audience erupts in applause. “If you’d like to conduct a respectful conversation, I’m happy to do it. If you don’t, please go and sit down, and I’ll answer the next question.”

The testy exchange is vintage Christie — or, at least, vintage Christie on YouTube, where it has drawn more than 770,000 views, a number that dwarfs those of his peers around the country and has fueled the buzz about his being a potential national candidate. Since Mr. Christie took office in January, his staff has spread his message on YouTube, posting sharply edited videos of him talking tough or dressing down hostile questioners, a stark contrast with the set pieces that make up most other politicians’ offerings online.

The style and sheer size of the oeuvre — 163 videos — has helped make Mr. Christie, a Republican in a largely Democratic state, a YouTube sensation, with myriad fans around the country who can describe his goals, dislikes and manner.

“A lot the political stuff online is really dry, but with Christie, there’s an entertainment factor,” said Nicco Mele, who teaches a class on the Internet and politics at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard. “These videos don’t seem professionally produced, even though they are.”

Mr. Mele, who worked on Internet strategy for Howard Dean’s bid for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2004, noted that “until now, the most visible impact YouTube has had on politics is catching gaffes, but that’s changing.” He said Mr. Christie’s approach was “very smart and unusual,” predicting “you’ll see other people adopt it.”

In the last two years, it has become standard for major political figures to have their own YouTube channels, allowing them to present a carefully tailored image directly to the public. But Mr. Christie’s effort, and its response, have been anything but standard.

The number of videos that Mr. Christie has released — an average of nearly four per week since he has been in office — easily eclipses fellow Republicans considered presidential contenders, even though the others have spent many more years in the limelight. Gov. Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota has 88 videos on his channel, the political action committee of former Gov. Mitt Romney of Massachusetts has 55, and Gov. Haley Barbour of Mississippi has 49.

More telling, Mr. Christie’s clips have been viewed two million times — seven times as many as the other three combined. Even Sarah Palin’s channel has drawn less traffic (though other videos posted about her have more views).

The video of Mr. Christie’s exchange with that teacher, in Raritan in September, has been viewed more than all but six of the videos on the White House channel. A Robbinsville event where Mr. Christie contends that “the teachers’ union is about the accumulation and exercise of raw power” has drawn more than a quarter-million views, and one where he calls a local school superintendent “the new poster boy for all that’s wrong with a public school system that is being dictated by greed” has drawn more than 61,000.

The 2008 presidential candidates, particularly Barack Obama, pioneered the use of online video, but state and local politicians have deployed the tool in uneven ways. Mr. Christie hired one veteran of presidential campaigns, Patrick Jones, specifically to work with new media like YouTube and Twitter.

YouTube, started in 2005, is seen as crucial to reaching younger people who may not pay attention to talk radio or cable news. And the strategy’s success was evident as the governor stumped for Republicans around the country this fall.

“Christie, of course, is a YouTube sensation, so I’ve seen a lot of him,” Peter Beacom, 32, a software consultant, said at a campaign rally outside Minneapolis just before the election. “I have to admit, I’m fairly ignorant of Barbour and some of the others.”

A Sean Hannity or Don Imus interview has a bigger audience, but experts say the influence of online video may be greater. People learn of the videos from trusted friends or bloggers, they can replay them endlessly, and they often forward the links to others; and they are likely to pay closer attention to something they seek out rather than something that washes over the airwaves.

“Political opinion is formed by people talking to each other — it’s the community that amplifies the content,” said Andrew Rasiej, co-founder of Personal Democracy Forum and techPresident, Web sites devoted to the intersection of politics and the Internet. “Campaigns and candidates are realizing they need to be media organizations, they need to aggregate audiences.”

Michael DuHaime, the governor’s chief political strategist, argued, in classic image-maker style, that “the viral nature of his YouTube videos has less to do with the medium than it does the man.” They work, Mr. DuHaime said, because of the governor’s “real accomplishments and his clear, direct way of communicating his vision for the state.”

But experts said Mr. Christie’s effective, animated speaking style was enhanced by the videography style of his aides.

Many clips are less than five minutes long, and generally have an impromptu, almost homemade feel, shot with a hand-held camera in school gyms and firehouses, carefully edited to show Mr. Christie at his most earnest and funny, pacing with a microphone and giving detailed answers to constituents’ questions.

There he is at an October town-hall-style meeting in Monmouth Junction, dripping with sarcasm as he characterizes the Legislature as being overly concerned with trivial issues. There he is ridiculing the teachers’ union this fall in Scotch Plains, and back in June in Robbinsville, comparing it to a playground bully.

“I’ve said, ‘You punch them, I punch you,’ ” he said. “The fight is about who is going to run public education in New Jersey — the parents and the people they elect, or the mindless, faceless union leaders who decide that they’re going to be the ones who are going to run it because they have the money and the authority to bully around school boards and local councils.”

People who have worked for Mr. Christie say that he is perfectly capable of modulating his tone and that he can use scolding and ridicule strategically. YouTube viewers, though, hear the governor saying with a shrug that this is just who he is.

“I have an Irish father, and I had — and I had before she passed away six years ago, a Sicilian mother,” he told an audience in May. “For those of you who have been exposed to the combination of Irish and Sicilian, it has made me not unfamiliar with conflict.”