Shameless self-promotion alert!!!

Tonight I bellied up to the pundit bar and appeared as a guest on the BlogTalkRadio edition of the excellent blog Wilshire & Washington.

Maegan Carberry, who I met on the Obama campaign invited suckered me into a rough Q&A by herself and Variety Editor-At-Large Ted Johnson.

I don’t know who keeps telling people that I know what I’m talking about (It’s me.), but I can’t say I dislike the attention.

For a refresher course on my past punditry, take a look at the clips below from my appearances on KNBC Los Angeles’ NewsConference…

Another very creative video from the Gravel camp. What is it about Gravel’s supporters that gives them such a creative edge in the online video battle?

Is it that the suspension of disbelief needed to go full-throttle for a candidate who will never win sets free supporter’s creative juices?

Former Senator Mike Gravel was excluded from last week’s debate in Las Vegas. The video above shows how he handled the situation – by holding an event where he yells at the television. Thanks to Tivo, you don’t even have to miss any of the debate while he gives his responses.

Actually, this event was a nice way to deal with the situation.

Now, it wasn’t a surprise to the Alaskan that he was being left out of the party at UNLV. So, ahead of the debate his campaign also produced the video below, which takes a humorous look at what he’d be doing. To wit, he’d be pwning people at Halo III.

Former Senator Mike Gravel’s campaign released this video a week back, and I thought it worth posting here. It will get nowhere near the attention of the Rock or Fire videos. That’s a shame because there is something much more important going on in this piece than there was in those artsy one-off clips.

In response to a video question through YouTube, Gravel addresses a bankruptcy in his family’s past in frank and clear words. This is a candidate using the online video medium to give a direct response to a direct – and tough – citizen question. I would love to see more of this from the other campaigns. At least once a week check in with a simple video like this answering a question without a bunch of hubbub.

Just once a week.

Please.

You may have seen Max Blumenthal’s words at The Nation or HuffPo. Or, if you were at this week’s Take Back America conference, you might have seen him conducting interesting interviews of such folks as Mike Gravel, Rev. Al Sharpton or “Obama Girl” Amber Lee Ettinger.

Actually, he never found Obama Girl at the event – but made sure to ask lots of people where she could be tracked down.

It appears the conference organizers were a little nervous about Blumenthal’s artistry, as he explains in this excerpt from his personal blog:

With over a thousand people waiting to view my film, my videographer, Thomas Shomaker, and I were whisked backstage. There, conference organizers told us “technical” problems made our screening impossible. I was finally told that our film was too “edgy.” In it I interviewed participants at the conference, including Ralph Nader, Al Sharpton, Mike Gravel, bloggers from Atrios to Matt Stoller, and activists. I suspect that its good-natured humor failed to meet a threshold of dull earnestness. Judge for yourself. Watch the film now. (MaxBlumenthal.com)

Don’t worry Max. Like all great artists, people will appreciate this video after you’re dead.

For a refresher on Blumenthal’s history in political conference filmmaking, check out his piece from CPAC: