The YouTube Lobby

The Washington Post has written a great article on lobbyists leveraging the power of YouTube just like candidates. Here's one entitled "Send Your Underwear To The Undersecretary. Statistics on how many pairs of underwear actually make it to the Undersecretary coming soon:

From the Washington Post:

The Newest Lobbying Tool: Underwear
By Cindy Skrzycki

It was inevitable. In the Internet age, interest groups seeking influence in Washington are joining presidential candidates in discovering a new electronic tool to press their agenda: YouTube.

"Send your underwear to the undersecretary" urges the actress in the Competitive Enterprise Institute's stinging 66-second anti-regulatory video posted on YouTube, a free video-sharing site that is a subsidiary of Google. The video blames a 2001 Energy Department rule for an energy-efficiency standard that it says has made new models of washing machines more expensive while getting laundry less clean.

The underwear video illustrates what other advocacy groups are finding out: YouTube is a cheap, creative way to get a message to a potentially vast audience. This slow migration is in addition to more traditional lobbying approaches, such as direct mail, Web sites and scripted phone calls to federal officials.

Keep reading at washingtonpost.com