Paris Hilton’s Political Campaign Spoof Racks Up The Hits

Paris Hilton may be in Denmark promoting her line of bags, but back stateside, her FunnyOrDie.com John McCain campaign ad spoof has garnered five million views, and counting.

The ever-growing totals however, haven’t come as a surprise to Adam McKay and Chris Henchy, co-founders of FunnyOrDie.com, who came up with idea for the clip.

“We’re excited by it,” McKay said. “We sort of suspected it’d be big as soon as we heard she was into it. The fact that McCain sort of haphazardly used her in his campaign ad… And now she’s responding to him is just too good.”

McKay said he came up with the idea for the clip — which features the heiress responding to McCain’s spot, which pitted Barack Obama as “the biggest celebrity in the world,” in between clips of Hilton and Spears — in a few minutes.

“I was sitting in my car making phone calls and I just had five minutes of down time,” McKay told Access. “I happened to be listening to Air America, the progressive radio station, and they kept talking about this Paris Hilton, Britney Spears [and] John McCain [ad] and [I] thought, ‘Oh my god! She’s got to respond.”

McKay called the heiress’ agent, who hooked him up with the celebutante herself just three hours later. After writing the script, McKay handed it off to Henchy, who like Hilton, was in New York City at the time.

“She had some smart and very specific notes,” Henchy said of Hilton’s response. “Her parents were also involved, which is nice. Her parents are looking out for her and they also wanted to know she [was] being protected because I think they knew this piece was going to be big.”

Shot in the Hamptons, the clip was edited in just hours and sent off to Hilton in Denmark for final approval. The heiress herself responded quickly.

”‘Likes it. XOXO,’” McKay recounted of the heiress’ reply. “Which for Paris, means affirmative.”

Though the number of people who have seen the clip continues to grow, at least one important person close to the situation has not.

“I haven’t seen the ad. I rarely look at these ads,” Michelle Obama, wife of presidential hopeful Barack Obama, told “Good Morning America.”

But it appears the Paris Hilton clip has some long legs.

On Thursday, Republican Congressman Michael Burgess, from Texas, suggested using the energy plan the heiress outlined during her FunnyOrDie.com clip. Hilton’s plan included “limited offshore drilling, with strict environmental oversight… while creating tax incentives to get Detroit making hybrid and electric cars.”

“Let’s bring up the Paris Hilton plan,” CNN quoted the Congressman as saying at a Republican news conference.

As for the heiress though, she has commented only briefly since her spoof came out.

“It was a lot of fun,” she told Women’s Wear Daily.