Giving a musical boost to a presidential campaign, local singer and songwriter Ariel Thiermann (bottom center) leads a group of local Barack Obama supporters in filming a music video for the Internet on Saturday at the Pacific Cultural Center in Santa Cruz. Roger Sideman Register-Pajaronian

SANTA CRUZ — It wasn’t the most eventful Oscar Sunday for documentary filmmaker and one-time nominee Eric Thiermann, but Sunday was probably no less important than the day he walked down the red carpet. Thiermann spent the day putting the finishing touches on a locally produced music video for Barack Obama that he — and the hundreds who participated in the filming Saturday — hope will boost the candidate’s chances in Texas and Ohio on March 4.

Once the music video hits the Internet today or Tuesday, local Obama supporters want it to take off like the song “Yes We Can,” created by singer will.i.am of the Black Eyed Peas. That video, produced by a son of Bob Dylan, sets the words of an Obama speech to music. And in just a few weeks, it has been viewed 5 million times and has become the unofficial anthem of the Obama campaign.

“The idea was to create inspiration for an even broader audience than that video,” said Don Morrison, Obama campaign communications director for the Monterey Bay Area.

The song, also called “Yes We Can,” is more folksy than the hit song on Youtube.com, with tinges of gospel and verses sung in both Spanish and English.

“There is so much excitement and hope around Barack Obama’s campaign,” said Santa Cruz Mayor Ryan Coonerty. “It is great that Santa Cruz County is adding its voice to bring hope back to America.”

Although Thiermann recorded the music video, the credit belongs to his daughter Ariel, who wrote the song. The accomplished singer, who leads women’s singing circles in Santa Cruz, rewrote the lyrics to become a pro-Obama song with the help of several women in the group, and her mother, Linda.

More than 150 Obama supporters, including one city councilman, showed up on short notice to be in the music video. The group has no intention of just letting the video sit on the internet.

The group plans to distribute the video on the Web, using blogs, social networking sites like Facebook.com, and their own site, www.singforobama.org. They want to challenge people around the country to learn the song, get a group together, video it and put it on YouTube.

“Our ultimate goal is getting on Oprah,” singer and organizer Amie Forest told the crowd.

For Obama, new media has become an essential part of his change message, said syndicated columnists Steve and Cokie Roberts in a column printed earlier this week in the Register-Pajaronian.

“Yes We Can” — the previous version — is far more effective because it comes from the bottom up, not the top down, they wrote. The video itself embodies what he’s trying to sell: a shift in power from old to young, insider to outsider.

“There are many reasons why Obama has surged into the lead for the Democratic nomination, but this is an important one. More and more voters are getting their information about the candidates directly from the Internet, outside the filters and frameworks imposed by the mainstream media,” the Roberts’ said.

The video will be completed today or Tuesday and can be found on the local group’s Web site, www.SingForObama.org.

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(Published in 2/25/08)

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