Impact of web ads

The L.A. Times has an article today regarding the now well-traveled anti-Clinton 1984 parody ad that hit YouTube several weeks ago. One thing that seems to be of issue lately is the fact that federal election law largely leaves these ads alone. This ad was produced - from what we can tell - by an individual unaffiliated with the Obama campaign. Assuming this is accurate, and there is no coordination, the law categorizes this now very effective ad as free speech with no reporting or limits whatsoever.

Many suggest that there should be disclosures involved with these ads. In the article, Rick Hassen notes that the low cost of these types of ads removes the interest in requiring disclosures. I agree wholeheartedly with that... producing these types of ads are now so incredibly cheap that the actual expenditure might only be a few dollars. Consider that the ad in question likely was produced on a home computer using iMovie, or some other type of inexpensive video editor. The clips are free, and uploading to YouTube for distribution is free. How much of a quid pro quo could there be (from a corruption standpoint) for an ad expenditure that was only a few bucks? This begs the question... would the required consitutional basis for overcoming a First Amendment challenge to regulate these types of ads need to rely on the impact of the ads rather than the cost? Clearly this ad has had great impact... but there are (I'd wager) hundreds of other ads floating on YouTube that have had no impact whatsoever. Should their creators also disclose their identity, or does it not matter since their impact has been closer to zero? What are the metrics on this? Rick suggests in the article that disclosure is important to weigh credibility... I'm not sure that is a sufficiently compelling interest for First Amendment purposes.

Lots of questions remain... as always in the realm of campaign finance, the answers may be a bit elusive.

UPDATE: Slight correction above... I'm reminded that disclosure requirements are subject to exacting scrutiny, as opposed to strict scrutiny under McIntyre v. Ohio Elections Comm'n. Still a tall mountain to climb for anyone that would propose disclosure requirements for these types of ads.