Update @ 3:53pm - 1.7 million views -- in just a little over 24 hours. Incredible.

Let me give you some perspective on just how big a hit Barack Obama's "A More Perfect Union" was: in its first 19 hours on YouTube, it has been played three times as often as the most viewed clip on John McCain's channel -- and has received 170,000 more views than the most viewed clip on Hillary Clinton's channel.

By mid-day, "A More Perfect Union" will almost certainly have been watched more times in 36 hours than than the Clinton clip (her 3am ad) and the McCain clip (Bill Clinton praising his political skills) -- combined. Together, those two clips have been on YouTube for just a touch longer than 19 hours. (Clinton's two weeks, McCain's three months.) Obama's speech has already received twice as many views as the original video of Wright, posted on the web one week ago.

Another way of thinking about it: the most popular Clinton and McCain clips were both well under one minute long -- and neither candidate appeared in their own video (except for the obligatory "I approved this ad" message).

(Update: I should also note that while Obama's video is ranked at 4 stars and has 8,500 ratings and growing, Clinton's video was ranked 1 star and had 3,000+ ratings.)

The viral spread of Obama's address has blown away Obama's famous Ebenezer Baptist speech, which received 330,000 views in its first few days online. At the time, that seemed remarkable.

Now -- more than one million views -- in less than 24 hours? For a speech that itself was just over a half-hour long? Incredible.

When you hear people say that a Barack Obama presidency could be transformative, this kind of thing is what makes them think that. The amount of interest in Barack Obama's campaign is just staggering. I have never before seen a political figure establish the kind of connection with people that Barack Obama has been able to achieve.

An e-mail a friend of mine wrote me last night demonstrates what I'm talking about. As you can see, Obama's speech inspired him -- and his response to it inspired me.

Subject: Barack's speech

Admittedly, I live in a liberal city and work in a liberal area of Seattle (south of downtown). Today at noon I went to a bar/grill place to have lunch and Barack's speech was on a few of the plasma TVs at the bar.

Everyone in that bar was absolutely mesmerized by this guy. It reminded of Jed and I watching the OJ verdict on TV so many years ago.

I have no idea whether this speech was politically good -a good friend of mine was telling that the right was making their usual hatchet job. I almost am curious to find out what the Clintons will do with this.

Up until today I was torn about what I was going to do in November. I can't stomach voting Republican mostly because of their social agenda. But I wasn't bowled over by Barack or Hillary. See I am too cynical and jaded to believe in hope and inspiration and all of Barack's rhetoric. Hillary's sense of inevitability and entitlement smacks of a politburo bureacrat whose turn has finally come.

Today though I am a believer. Maybe I am a sucker and maybe I will be dissapointed again. But right now I have bought into the dream. And against my better rational judgement I am allowing myself to believe that sometimes the messenger transcends the message. And that hope and inspiration can be the catalyst for real change.

I stopped believing in religion a while ago. I have 12 years of catholic schooling to know when I am in the throes of blind faith. It feels a little bit like that right now.

(Just a quick note for those who might be confused as to how I came up with the traffic numbers. It's simple -- just click here and here to watch the two versions of the speech posted on Barack Obama's YouTube channel and add both of the numbers together.)