"Barack Obama vs. Mitt Romney" | ||||
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Single by Epic Rap Battles of History | ||||
Released | October 15, 2012 | |||
Genre | Rap battle | |||
Length | 3:08 | |||
Label | Maker Studios | |||
Songwriter(s) | Peter Shukoff, Lloyd Ahlquist | |||
Producer(s) | Michlle Maloney, Drew Walkup | |||
Epic Rap Battles of History singles chronology | ||||
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Music video | ||||
Barack Obama vs Mitt Romney. Epic Rap Battles of History Season 2. on YouTube |
"Barack Obama vs. Mitt Romney" is a song and music video, performed by Iman "Alphacat" Crosson, Peter "Nice Peter" Shukoff, and Lloyd "EpicLLOYD" Ahlquist. It is the 8th episode of the 2nd season of the YouTube video series Epic Rap Battles of History . The video was released on October 15, 2012 on the show's YouTube channel in anticipation of the 2012 U.S. presidential election.
The video features then-President of the United States Barack Obama (portrayed by Iman Crosson) and former Governor of Massachusetts Mitt Romney (portrayed by Lloyd Ahlquist) facing off in a rap battle. Romney raps first, Obama second; following four back-and-forth verses, former President Abraham Lincoln (portrayed by Peter Shukoff) interrupts the two and begins rapping against both Obama and Romney (Lincoln had previously appeared in the first season of the series, battling Chuck Norris). Lincoln proceeds to "bitch smack" the two before being carried away by an American bald eagle.
As of May 2024, the video has received over 161 million views and 1.2 million likes on YouTube and is currently the most-viewed episode of the series. [1]
Three spiritual sequels to the battle, "Donald Trump vs. Hillary Clinton", [2] "Donald Trump vs. Joe Biden", [3] and "Donald Trump vs. Kamala Harris" [4] were made in correspondence with the 2016, 2020, and 2024 presidential elections respectively. Abraham Lincoln returns in the 2016 battle as a third party rapper. [5] "Donald Trump vs. Joe Biden" did not feature a third-party rapper, [6] while the 2024 battle features Theodore Roosevelt as a third-party rapper.
The video was one of the most popular viral videos of 2012 [7] and was discussed in a New York Times article. [8]
The video was nominated for "Video of the Year" at the 2013 YouTube Music Awards but lost to Girls' Generation song "I Got a Boy". [9]
In July 2013, the song was certified Gold by the RIAA, making ERB the first YouTube channel to do so. [8] [10]
Region | Certification | Certified units/sales |
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United States (RIAA) [11] | Gold | 500,000‡ |
‡ Sales+streaming figures based on certification alone. |
Nebraska's 2nd congressional district is a congressional district in the U.S. state of Nebraska that encompasses the core of the Omaha–Council Bluffs metropolitan area. It includes all of Douglas County, which includes the state's largest city Omaha; it also includes Saunders County and areas of western Sarpy County. It has been represented in the United States House of Representatives since 2017 by Don Bacon, a member of the Republican Party. It was one of three districts that would have voted for Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election had they existed in their current configuration while being won or held by a Republican in 2024.
The following is a timeline of major events leading up to and immediately following the United States presidential election of 2008. The election was the 56th quadrennial United States presidential election. It was held on November 4, 2008, but its significant events and background date back to about 2002. The Democratic Party nominee, Senator Barack Obama of Illinois, defeated the Republican Party's nominee, Senator John McCain of Arizona.
Wayne Allyn Root is an American conservative television and radio host, author, activist, conservative political commentator and conspiracy theorist. He is the host of three television shows: "The ROOT Reaction" nightly at 10 PM ET on Real America's Voice TV...and at 7 PM ET on Lindell TV network (FrankSpeech.com)...and Saturdays at Noon ET "America's Top Ten Countdown with Wayne Allyn Root" on Real America's Voice TV. He is also the radio host of "Wayne Allyn Root: Raw & Unfiltered" on AM 670 in Las Vegas and nationally-syndicated on the USA Radio Network, and formerly on Newsmax TV. Root was an opinion columnist for the Las Vegas Review-Journal. His newspaper columns are currently nationally syndicated on Sundays by Creators Syndicate.
The South Carolina presidential primary is an open primary election which has become one of several key early-state presidential primaries in the process of the Democratic and Republican Parties choosing their respective general election nominees for President of the United States. South Carolina has cemented its place as the "First in the South" primary for both parties.
This article lists potential candidates for the Democratic nomination for Vice President of the United States in the 2008 presidential election. After Illinois Junior Senator Barack Obama became the Democratic Party's presumptive presidential nominee on June 3, 2008, Obama formed a small committee, made up of James A. Johnson, Eric Holder and Caroline Kennedy, to help him select a running mate. Veteran Democratic lawyer and advisor James "Jim" Hamilton, of the firm Morgan, Lewis & Bockius, later replaced Johnson in vetting candidates.
This is the electoral history of Barack Obama. Obama served as the 44th president of the United States (2009–2017) and as a United States senator from Illinois (2005–2008).
Joe Biden, the 46th and current president of the United States, has run for public office several times, beginning in 1970. Biden served as the 47th vice president (2009–2017), and as a United States senator from Delaware (1973–2009). Biden is the oldest elected and serving president, the second Catholic president, after John F. Kennedy, and the first president from Delaware.
A convention bounce or convention bump refers to an increase in support that U.S. presidential candidates in the Republican or Democratic party typically enjoy after the televised national convention of their party. A presumptive nominee for president may also be said to experience a "VP bounce" after announcing his or her pick for vice president prior to the convention. The size and impact of convention bumps vary, but presidential candidates usually see at least a small uptick in their polling numbers coming out of their conventions.
The Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner, commonly known as the Al Smith Dinner, is an annual white tie dinner in New York City to raise funds for Catholic charities supporting children of various needs in the Archdiocese of New York. Held at New York City's Waldorf-Astoria Hotel on the third Thursday of October, it is hosted by the Archbishop of New York. It is organized by the Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation in honor of Al Smith, who grew up in poverty and later became the governor of New York four times and was the first Catholic nominated for president by a major party as the Democratic nominee in the 1928 election.
The Redskins Rule is an observed longstanding coincidence between the National Football League (NFL) game results of the Washington Commanders, formerly known as the Washington Redskins, and the results of subsequent United States presidential elections. Briefly stated, when Washington won its last home game prior to the presidential election, the party of the incumbent president retained the presidency; when Washington lost, the opposition party won. This coincidence was noted by many sports and political commentators, and held true for the first sixteen elections after the franchise first moved to Washington in 1937. The rule was first broken in 2004 and has since held true only twice.
Iman Crosson, better known by his stage name Alphacat, is an American actor, impressionist, and YouTube personality known for his impersonations of former U.S. President Barack Obama and his starring role in independent film Along the Roadside.
Peter Alexis Shukoff, best known as his stage name Nice Peter or Bluesocks, is an American musician, rapper and Internet personality. A self-described "Comic/Guitar Hero", he is best known for the comedy on his YouTube channel, Nice Peter, and especially for the comedic series Epic Rap Battles of History which he co-created with Lloyd "EpicLLOYD" Ahlquist. As of June 8, 2016, NicePeter has over 2.6 million YouTube subscribers. The day after hitting one million subscribers, the video game channel G4 crowned Nice Peter the King of Dot Comedy on Attack of the Show. His two channels, Nice Peter and ERB, have a total of over 17 million subscribers and 4 billion views as of February 2019. He also has a third channel that he uses for vlogs and "Monday Shows", a show that he uploads on either Mondays or Tuesdays consisting of different segments including "Viewer Mail", "Twitter Question Time", and "Ask a Giraffe". They have been featured on the Huffington Post, Billboard.com, Forbes and the January 2012 issue of Wired.
Epic Rap Battles of History (ERB) is a YouTube web series and music project created by Peter "Nice Peter" Shukoff and Lloyd "EpicLLOYD" Ahlquist. The series pits historical and pop culture figures against one another in a rap battle format. The characters portrayed are often determined by suggestions from viewers in the comments sections of the channel's videos. Shukoff and Ahlquist write each song themselves, researching the subject in order to find obscure details to use as references in the lyrics, although guest stars featured in the battles as well as certain Patreon subscribers have also contributed to the writing process. Following an extended hiatus, the channel returned with a bonus battle in December 2018, and the sixth season debuted on April 20, 2019. As of February 23, 2023, the channel has 14.9 million subscribers and approximately 4 billion total video views.
Lloyd Leonard Ahlquist, better known by his online alias EpicLLOYD, is an American internet personality and rapper best known for the YouTube video series Epic Rap Battles of History, along with Peter "Nice Peter" Shukoff. Ahlquist has performed as an MC, actor, improviser and writer. In addition to the rap battles, Ahlquist, along with Shukoff, appeared in a cameo in The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water.
Double Down: Game Change 2012 is a book written by political journalists John Heilemann and Mark Halperin about the 2012 United States presidential election, in which Barack Obama was re-elected as President of the United States, defeating Mitt Romney. The book, published by Penguin Press, is a behind-the-scenes narrative of the Obama and Romney campaigns. It is the sequel to Game Change, which chronicled the 2008 United States presidential election. Double Down was released on November 5, 2013.
The 2016 United States presidential election in Iowa was held on Tuesday, November 8, 2016, as part of the 2016 United States presidential election in which all 50 states plus the District of Columbia participated. Iowa voters chose electors to represent them in the Electoral College via a popular vote, pitting the Republican Party's nominee, businessman Donald Trump, and his running mate Indiana Governor Mike Pence against the Democratic Party nominee, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and her running mate Virginia Senator Tim Kaine. Iowa has six electoral votes in the Electoral College.
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