In response to the first TV attack ad of the governor’s race, Oregon Governor Ted Kulongoski's campaign has responded with a video response not on TV but posted on the web.

NWCN

Oregon Gov. Ted Kulongoski delivers his State of the State Address at the Portland City Club.

Watch original ad

The governor appears to be the first politician in Oregon to post videos on the popular video sharing site, You Tube.

"This is a clever response by replying on the internet," said Robert Eisinger, Assoc. Professor of Political Science at Lewis & Clark College.

Clever or not, the political scientist doubts it will have any impact.

The governor's video runs two minutes, much longer than his campaign could afford for a television spot. It lists, rapid-fire, the governor's accomplishments during his first term.

It's a belated reply to republican challenger Ron Saxton's initial campaign ad aired a few weeks ago, which challenged viewers to name anything the governor had done.

"Times up," says Saxton in that spot. "Couldn't remember anything Ted's accomplished? Most people can't."

A day after the governor's response video went up on the web, Saxton's original ad appeared too.

But it was not posted by the Saxton campaign.

It came from the governor's campaign internet strategy consultant, Kari Chisholm, complete with a snarky title, Saxton's Stupid Stopwatch Ad.

"I just grabbed it and put it on You Tube to make sure when we responded he didn't try to hide the original attack," Chisholm said.

Saxton's campaign had "no comment one way or the other" on the posting of its video without its permission on the public site. Saxton's campaign has posted its TV spots on its own Web site but not on other sites like You Tube.

Kulongoski's campaign website includes a number of videos, often with a home video quality.

Political analyst Eisinger believes the Internet has proven a valuable tool for organizing and raising money for campaigns. But as for distributing video messages, Eisinger said, "It's not clear that Internet commercials for politicians yet matter."