Viva Obama

Yesterday I saw this video for the first time.  I figured it was just another link in the chain of “electo-tainment” (not “electotainment”) that started with Red State Update or Barely Political’s Obama Girl, includes all the derivatives of the latter, and was lengthened with the recent addition of the musical with a greater message of hope than Rent, Barackula. But no, no, no. Amigos de Obama is the real deal.

In a heated election where the media’s constant mention of the Battle for the Latino Vote (they make it sound more like an historical skirmish than a campaign strategy) and Spanish-language campaign ads (like Rudy Guiliani’s Un Plan) are arguably the only mainstream media attention given to Latinos, Miguel Orozco wanted to fill the void.

###The president of Nueva Vista Media – a digital media company focused on communicating messages for Latinos across a variety of platforms – was so taken with the politics of the “skinny dude with the funny name” that he wanted to create something that would appeal to and energize an underrepresented portion of the electorate. Cue the mariachis.

Will it work? I have no idea. I’ll leave that up to Jeff Jarvis to decide. But growing up a 45-minute drive from the Mexican border and being so surrounded by mariachis that I thought it was weird to eat a burrito in a restaurant without traditional Mexican musical accompaniment, I think it’s pretty sweet.