James Kotecki

James Kotecki (born October 23, 1985 in Syracuse, New York), known on YouTube as EmergencyCheese, is a political video blogger and host of The Politico's Playbook TV, based in Washington DC. His videos currently focus primarily on the 2008 presidential election, and especially on how YouTube could impact it. He believes that YouTube can change the way campaigns are run by allowing a "two-way" conversation between politicians and active voters.

Personal life
James Kotecki was born in Syracuse, New York on October 23, 1985 and has a brother, Mike Kotecki, who currently attends Duke University. When James was four, his family moved to Raleigh, North Carolina where he attended The Magellan Charter School as well as Raleigh Charter High School. In 2004 Kotecki served as a Tri-speaker in the North Carolina Youth Legislative Assembly. Kotecki graduated from Georgetown University in late May 2007, where many of his earlier videos were taped. As of December 30, 2007, Kotecki announced that he is now engaged to his girlfriend Emily Freifeld, a graduate of American University.

Videos
Kotecki has been called a "new critic for a new medium" for his YouTube videos, and he has been featured in news programs such as CNN and Fox News. Kotecki's first videos began appearing on YouTube in late January of 2007. The first few videos to appear focused on the Democratic and Republican frontrunners and how they compare to one another. The focus then shifted more towards the individual candidates and the videos they had posted to YouTube, with his commentary about whether or not the videos would be effective on a medium such as YouTube.

His videos are well known for his "pencil puppets" of the candidates about whom he is speaking and for granting awards made by hand. Recently, he has begun "taking the fight" to the candidates by sending them questions in response to their searches, and has elicited several responses (see below). All of Kotecki's videos are available at his YouTube site or his personal site.

In September, 2007 James Kotecki signed on to politico.com, a political internet site with a Youtube channel. Kotecki posts videos every weekday about political news, especially the 2008 Presidential Election. In November, 2007, his EmergencyCheese account was selected to feature videos on homepage for the CNN/YouTube Republican Debate, and he selected one of his playbook videos.

Presidential candidate responses
To date, five presidential candidates have responded to Kotecki online: Dennis Kucinich, Mitt Romney, Tom Tancredo, John Edwards and John McCain. The first was a response by Kucinich regarding and applying some of the advice that Kotecki had given him in a video critique. Romney was the second to reply to Kotecki as a part of YouTube's "You Choose '08 Spotlight" in which candidates respond to questions from YouTube users. Tancredo has posted a video response, following a question posed by Kotecki after a solicitation appeared on Tancredo's campaign blog for questions from YouTube users.

Kotecki was even visited by two Presidential candidates: Ron Paul in late April, which Kotecki called "the first-ever interview with a Presidential candidate held in a college dorm room," and Mike Gravel in mid-May. The Ron Paul interview discussed Paul's history, foreign policy, congress, the internet, and personal liberty. The Gravel interview was mainly about Gravel's proposed Iraq exit strategy bill, which he was planning to bring to Congress. Other issues discussed included the Constitution and the War on Drugs.

In early June, Kotecki interviewed Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee and Democratic presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich. Huckabee discussed the fair tax, education, the relationship between religion and government, and public health policy. Kucinich discussed foreign policy, health care, and his use of youtube in his campaign. In late July, Kotecki interviewed Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards over the phone. Edwards discussed global and domestic poverty, global warming, and the effect of Youtube on politics.

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