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President Barack Obama addressed — and delighted — a packed, purple house of Huskies at Hec Edmondson Pavilion today, part of a whistlestop-style tour to get out the Democratic vote, especially for Sen. Patty Murray, before the mid-term elections. “I am thrilled to back in Seattle, thrilled to be back in the state of Washington!” Obama said as cheers rocked the hall. As he started his speech, someone called out, but the audience only heard his answer as he flashed…

What’s the mechanism that makes a political video go viral? What causes a video clip to spread from a few people to millions, sometimes in a matter of hours? Is it a top-down process led by elite gatekeepers or bottoms up, driven by people at the grass roots? And how do blogs affect the life cycle of a viral video?

Common wisdom might suggest that a posse of political blogs triggers virality, but research from the UW indicates it often springs from just two elite blogs followed by top general interest outlets that aren’t considered political.