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Creator of `Big Brother' Clinton video linked to rival

The mystery creator of the Orwellian YouTube ad against US presidential candidate Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton is a Democratic operative who worked for a digital consulting firm with ties to rival Senator Barack Obama.

Philip de Vellis, a strategist with Blue State Digital, acknowledged in an interview that he was the creator of the video, which portrayed Clinton as a Big Brother figure and urged support for Obama's presidential campaign.

De Vellis, 33, said he resigned from the firm on Wednesday after he learned that he was about to be unmasked by HuffingtonPost.com, a liberal news and opinion Web site.

Blue State designed Obama's Web site, and one of the firm's founding members, Joe Rospars, took a leave from the company to work as Obama's director of new media. The connection to the campaign is likely to be a setback for Obama, who has cultivated an image as politician who wants to rise above bare-knuckle politics.

"It's true ... yeah, it's me," de Vellis said on Wednesday evening.

He said he produced the ad outside of work and that neither Blue State nor the Obama campaign was aware of his role in the ad.

"But it raises some eyebrows, so I thought it best that I resign and not put them in that position," he said.

Thomas Gensemer, the managing director of Blue State Digital, said de Vellis was fired.

"Mr. de Vellis created this video on his own time," Gensemer said in a statement. "It was done without the knowledge of management, and was in no way tied to his work at the firm or our formal engagement [on technology pursuits] with the Obama campaign."

In its own statement, the Obama camp said the campaign "had no knowledge and had nothing to do with the creation of the ad."

"Blue State Digital has separated ties with this individual, and we have been assured he did no work on our campaign's account," it said.

The Clinton campaign had no immediate comment.

In the interview, and later in a blog written for the Huffington Post, de Vellis expressed pride in his creation, while acknowledging that his employers are "disappointed and angry at me, and deservedly so."

"It changes the trajectory of my career," he said.

In his blog posting, he wrote: "I support Senator Obama. I hope he wins the primary. [I recognize that this ad is not his style of politics]. I also believe that Senator Clinton is a great public servant, and if she should win the nomination, I would support her and wish her all the best."

The ad was guerrilla politics at its cleverest and had become a hit of the YouTube video-sharing Web site.

The 74-second clip, a copy of a 1984 Apple ad for its Macintosh computer, has recorded nearly 1.5 million views, with an enormous surge in the past two days. The video's final image reads "BarackObama.com."

The ad portrayed Clinton on a huge television screen addressing robotic humans in a stark, futuristic hall. A female athlete tosses a hammer at the screen, destroying Clinton's image with an explosive flash. Then this text: "On January 14th the Democratic primary will begin. And you will see why 2008 isn't going to be like '1984."
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