By now you may have heard about "Obama Girl," an attractive young woman dancing and singing a tune about having a "crush" on the Democratic presidential hopeful. It's all the rage on the cable news nets this afternoon. Doing some digging around the Internet, however, I was unable to find who exactly is behind the viral video phenomenon, but I did find it was registered through GoDaddy.com, the Web site registrar made a household name for its racy TV ads.
At any rate, "Obama Girl" Leah Kauffman (see update) doesn't appear to be a random young woman with a camcorder and Internet savvy. Her video "I Got a Crush on Obama" serves as the inaugural media stunt for BarelyPolitical.com, a Web site created on May 30 that has a skimpy "about us" section:
BarelyPolitical.com launches this week with “I Got a a Crush on Obama.”
Then there will be lots of other videos and stuff later.
Several sections, including this here “About Us”, will be a little more fleshed out soon.
From the look and feel of the site I'd say it's going to be like what would happen if you had Maxim magazine editors in charge of Hotline.
Here's what I found from a registration search:DomainsByProxy.com:
15111 N. Hayden Rd., Ste 160, PMB 353
Scottsdale, Arizona 85260
United States
Registered through: GoDaddy.com, Inc. (http://www.godaddy.com)
Domain Name: BARELYPOLITICAL.COM
Created on: 30-May-07
Expires on: 31-May-08
Last Updated on: 09-Jun-07
Administrative Contact:
Private, Registration BARELYPOLITICAL.COM@domainsbyproxy.com
Domains by Proxy, Inc.
DomainsByProxy.com
15111 N. Hayden Rd., Ste 160, PMB 353
Scottsdale, Arizona 85260
United States
(480) 624-2599 Fax -- (480) 624-2599
Update (15:28): Kauffman's MySpace page can be found here. As you can tell, she looks nothing like the girl in the video, so my suspicion that the voice and the body are two separate talents was correct. Oh, and Kauffman apparently is not new to doing viral video, as this Huffington Post item from January attests.
Update 2 (12:07 EDT | June 15): Noel Sheppard noticed that a whiteboard in the background of the video (towards the end of the video) has some invective about prominent conservatives scrawled on it:
Rush Limbaugh is Gross
Ann Coulter is a Whore
O'Reilly= Perv
Elizabeth [sic] Hasselbeck is total bitch
But apparently the folks at barelypolitical also "Love Perez Hilton!" a gossip blogger.
