WASHINGTON – First came the straightforward newspaper and radio ads.

Decades later, sleek political ads started saturating televisions. Then candidates scrambled to set up edgy campaign Web sites in attempts to lure younger voters.

Now, enter YouTube, the popular Web site that allows anybody to upload and watch video clips for free.

With its catchy jingle and black-and-white comics, a 60-second ad for Democratic challenger Carol Voisin portrays her opponent, U.S. Rep. Greg Walden, R-Hood River, as a rubber stamp for an increasingly unpopular President George W. Bush. Two weeks ago, the ad went up on Voisin’s campaign Web site and on YouTube, where it has since been watched more than 3,000 times.

Along with Constitution Party candidate Jack Alan Brown Jr., Voisin and Walden are battling to represent the 2nd Congressional District, which runs from the Idaho border to the Columbia River Gorge to southern Oregon.

”It challenges the mainstream status quo media,” said Voisin, whose campaign on Thursday loaded a second, 30-second ad on YouTube. ”It’s fairly inexpensive. It gets to a lot of people fast, and it’s creative.”

The 18-month-old YouTube has become the launching pad this election season for candidates targeting Web savvy voters, who – not coincidentally – tend to be disproportionately young and often have yet to develop strong party affiliations. In the first election where YouTube has become a factor, bloggers across the country have eagerly posted hundreds of ads on the site, raising questions about the ethics of the high-tech future of political advertising.

YouTube allows anybody who registers for a free account to post video clips that run under 10 minutes. Viewing the clips does not require registration. More than 100 million videos are viewed on the site each day, and the Internet search engine Google purchased the site earlier this month for $1.65 billion.

Dallas Boyd, Walden’s spokesman, dismissed Voisin’s 60-second parody song as a typical negative ad.

”Congressman Walden has run a positive campaign that focuses on Oregon issues and has not personally attacked his opponent,” he said.

Walden does not have any ads on YouTube, though his ads are posted on his campaign Web site.

Walden’s campaign might explore placing ads on YouTube in the future if it feels it will reach a wider audience, he said.

Supporters of Oregon gubernatorial candidates Ted Kulongoski, the incumbent Democrat, and Republican challenger Ron Saxton have posted several dozen clips on the site.

Voisin’s 60-second ad is a tailored version of the parody song ”Have You Had Enough?” by members of a North Carolina band called the Squirrel Nut Zippers. An Internet-based group that describes itself as an ”online clearinghouse for Democratic action” has been tailoring the ads free of charge for a number of Democratic candidates across the nation. More than 20 versions have been posted on YouTube.

”It gets to the Internet people,” Voisin said. ”More and more people living in the district are very tech savvy, and I want to reach them.”

Advertising on the Internet can benefit candidates from large, rural districts, such as the 2nd Congressional District, which runs from the Idaho border to the Columbia River Gorge to Southern Oregon and is one of the largest districts in the country.

Unlike urban-based districts with one major media market, such as Portland’s 3rd Congressional District, candidates from rural districts must advertise in several media markets – such as Bend, Klamath Falls and Ontario – to reach their constituents. The Internet, with its banner ads, campaign Web sites and now YouTube clips, centralizes campaign information for everybody to access.

But political science and advertising experts are skeptical about whether campaign ads on YouTube are effective. Unlike television ads that greet viewers tuning into their favorite shows, ads on YouTube require Internet users to actively seek out the clips.

”(Ads on YouTube) can really be pretty decisive in close elections, but who watches it?” said Robert Sahr, a political science professor at Oregon State University. ”People who were going to vote for her anyways or people who were curious? It’s hard to know who looks at it.”

Sahr said Voisin and other candidates who have not raised much money will likely benefit from the low production costs of advertising on YouTube.

According to reports filed with the Federal Elections Commission on Oct. 15, Walden had more than 60 times as much cash to spend than Voisin, who had about $15,000.

But candidates also run risks with YouTube, Sahr said. Because anybody can post clips on YouTube, an overzealous supporter could post a controversial, unendorsed clip on the Web site that backfires and ends up harming the candidate, he said.

Deborah Morrison, an advertising professor at the University of Oregon, said it’s just too early to tell if political ads on YouTube will have any effect on the election other than generating buzz.

”We don’t know yet who’s going to be watching it, but it says something of the ‘hip factor’ that we’re on there at all,” she said. ”But it’s still new enough that it’s not clear how to use it effectively yet.”

Voisin’s YouTube ads can be seen at

www.voisinforcongress.com www.youtube.com/watch?v=-rrhPCjctHA www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZckI0M-v3Do