Click to enlarge

The 2008 Presidential race marks the first election in which YouTube has become a battleground for which candidates are fighting for views and user comments, reports Globe and Mail. It's also the first battlefield where voters can affect the outcome as much as the candidates themselves.

Take the Obama Girl for example. Her video, I Got a Crush on Obama, garnered 2 million views in three weeks, making it the most-watched political video thus far.

Candidates are also taking full advantage of spoofs - a genre that needs no introduction on YouTube. Hillary had her Sopranos ending starring Bill Clinton, while Obama's tribute to Apple's famous "1984" Superbowl ad portrayed Hillary as Big Brother (view it here).

YouTube is indeed a two-way street for candidates. A candidate that's been knocked for expensive haircuts, John Edwards got a shock with a 2-minute video of him primping his hair set to the song, "I Feel Pretty."

Meanwhile, John McCain got into hot water with a video of him singing a Beach Boys hit at a campaign stop with a slight modification: "Bomb, Bomb Iran."

Rudy Giuliani dressed up in full drag as a joke back in 2000 for a dinner; this video came back to haunt him. Then there's former Alaska Senator Mike Gravel, who gets the most bizarre campaign video prize. The video shows him staring into the camera for long pauses and throwing a rock into a body of water. He does clear it up on an MSNBC clip: metaphors, people.

Indeed, YouTube helps show campaigner warts and all.