An Open Letter To Mitt Romney

As we discussed previously, Mitt Romney is really putting himself at a disadvantage by not committing to the CNN-YouTube Republican Debate. And I kind of feel it's our communal responsibility to sell him on it. God bless James Kotecki for trying to appeal to Romney emotionally and sentimentally. But I prefer writing open letters. Like the one I wrote to Ron Paul.


Dear Mr. Romney,

Congratulations on the success of your campaign. You've won the Iowa Straw Poll and you're ahead of the pack on YouTube along with Dr. Paul. You're award winning smile was featured on the cover of TIME MAGAZINE where you looked like a President of the people.

It is for these reasons that I am confused by your decision to deny the people a chance to engage you on the CNN-YouTube Republican Debate. This is no doubt a great opportunity for you to connect with young people across party lines in a venue that will be witnessed by all walks of Americans. It's a chance to show off your charm, witt and ability to think fast when thrown curve balls. All necessary skills of a great President. No doubt, if such a format existed when George W. Bush was running for President, he would be spending his days as an elephant shaver in the circus instead of as an elephant shaver in the White House.

You see, there's this notion of the Digital Divide. But that's bullshit. It's a myth perpetrated by the hippies. There is no divide. Nothing on this planet is exempt or immune or unexposed to the effect of the digital domain. You see, Mr. Romney, you are an old man that thinks in terms of nations and peoples. There are no nations. There are no peoples. There are no Russians. There are no Arabs. There are no third worlds. There is no West. There is only one holistic System of systems. One vast and inane, inter-made, interwoven, interacting, multi-varied, multinational series of tubes. It is the international System of the Internet that determines the totality of life on this planet. That is the natural order of things today. That is the atomic and subatomic and galactic structure of things today. And if you meddle with the primal forces of the Internet, you're campaign will fail. Am I getting through to you, Mr. Romney? Because in this world, there is no version of this debate being optional. Just as there's no version of election day being optional. The revolution will be viralized, Mr. Romney. And not even you can stop it.

Warmest Regards,

Philip Marlowe
Private Detective/C-List Blogger

An Open Letter To Ron Paul

Dear Dr. Paul,

Congratulations. As I'm sure you are aware, you're the only presidential candidate that I am yet to rag on. And I'd like to keep it that way, as I've never intended the Viralroots media empire to be just another second rate burn blog that rags on everyone for LOLs. See, ordinarily at this juncture, I would say something snarky and cruel in hopes that my dry humor lands me a new subscriber or two. But instead, I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and write you a letter imploring you to see the error of your ways and do your best to fix them.

My specific grievances have to do with your videos in the YouTube YouChoose Spotlight. In the text of your first video, you proclaimed yourself the "Internet's BFF." And over the months I've published statistics that support that claim. The fact is, I'm not aware of any candidate ever achieving such a level of success through a viralroots campaign as you. Your accomplishments are truly remarkable. Which is why I'd like to make you aware of two major missteps in your YouChoose Spotlight and am humbly asking you to correct them:

A) Why on earth would you allow a vacuous-eyed meat-head fratboy to introduce all of your spotlight videos? I mean seriously. There's never gonna be a rEVOLution when your poster-child looks like you picked him up from a Campus Republicans meeting. I swear I saw him on HotChicksWithDoucheBags last week. I beg you to lose this guy.

B) As the Internet's BFF, what on earth would possess you to use chopped up clips from what looks like a CSPAN-2 BOOK TV interview for the YouChoose Spotlight? I'm really confused. It seems that while candidate after candidate botched their time in the YouChoose Spotlight, you were making creative videos and engaging YouTube better than anyone else. You spoke to James Kotecki in his dorm room. You called out Rudy Giuliani. You posted humorous and enlightening clips from TV personalities like Bill Maher and Jon Stewart. You did a fantastic interview with Google. In other words, you did everything right. And finally, it's your turn to really shine and you posted a bunch of recycled crap. You don't talk to the YouTube constituency. You don't ask questions. You don't answer questions. Nada. Please, for the sake of this new political age, I beg you Dr. Paul, fix this. Go back to what works. You're good at it. No. The best at it. So please: Own it.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Warmest Regards,

Philip Marlowe
Private Detective/C-List Blogger