I Got a Crush on Obama

About

I got a crush on Obama is a viral video featuring a girl sensually singing about her love for now President Barack Obama who was, at that time, simple senator announcing his candidancy for the presidential elections.
That video's popularity spawned many remixes, and help launching Amber Lee Ettinger's, more widely known as Obama Girl, career as an actress and singer while also promoting Barely Political's popularity as a webshow.

The initial video

BarelyPolitical is an online video and entertainment website that features politically themed satirical music viral videos and parodies and that was created in June 2007 by Ben Relles and Leah_Kauffman. That latter is also well-known for having made Dick in a Box's parody My box in a box.
That same month, the 13th to be precise, they launched their first satirical themed video about Barack Obama, entitled Crush on Obama:

It featured model Amber Lee Ettinger lasciviously lip-dubbing a love song for Mr.Obama composed and sung by Leah Kauffman herself.

Internet sensation

Within days, the video would be the target of many online articles, some of them wondering if it was part of Barack Obama's campaign, which was quickly disproved by the persons concerned, including Barely Political considering it as simply for fun.

According to French newspaper 20minutes, the video gained more than 2.5 million views in a little more than a month (link via Wayback Machine) and Ettinger was quickly nicknamed Obama Girl.

To date, the initial video has gained more than 20 million views.

Video reponses/parodies

On June 25, 2007, the first response would be made.
Entitled I Got a Crush on… Giuliani, it features Youtuber Venetian Princess singing her love for senator Giuliani.
That peculiar video has then been made private from public view but led to the second video from Barely Political on July 16, featuring a parody of TV debate between Obama Girl and then called Giuliani Girl :

On July 2, songwriter-singer-actress Taryn Southern released the Hott4Hill viral video on YouTube. Clearly intended as an answer video for "I Got a Crush on Obama" and targeting Hillary Clinton, it gained media attention for its more ambiguous sexuality (link via Wayback Machine) :

Other notables parodies are also including :

"Obama Girl" on the web

In addition to the videos' increasing popularity, which allowed Ettinger to have her own Obama Girl sub-show inside Barely Political, that latter also created her own Youtube channel called 2girls2minutes for previous recorded live broadcasts in which she answered questions from fans.
She also got her own website, her own cafepress goodies, and official websites (link via Wayback Machine) for the Obama Girl character, which popularity was boosted again in January 2008 with her Super Obama Girl video that gained, to date, more than 32 million views :

She has also done interviews with other Youtube celebrities, including The Gregory brothers or also Chad Vader.
Lastly, she appeared as a Playboy model in October 2008 (link via Wayback Machine) and got an appearance in a EA game promotional video for the Command & Conquer : Red Alert 3 game, doing a parody of her first Crush on Obama impression.

Obama Girl is also included in the famous Epicroll, a compilation of some of the most popular internet-themed music, alongside Rickroll, Bel Air, Jizz in my Pants, What What in the Butt, You Are A Pirate, and Numa Numa.