Basil Marceaux keeps getting clicks on YouTube

July 30, 2010 10:35 PM

Jana Barnello

A Soddy Daisy man who's running for Tennessee governor is becoming an internet sensation. Basil Marceaux has hundreds of thousands of hits on YouTube.

Marceaux has run for Congress, Chattanooga mayor, and now governor of Tennessee. His recent appearance on a Nashville TV station is going viral on YouTube, and now he's getting national media attention.

The video is a one-minute clip on Nashville's WSMV that now has almost 400,000 YouTube hits. Stephen Colbert featured it on his show "The Colbert Report" earlier this week.

In the WSMV clip, Marceaux introduces himself as "Basil Marceaux.com." Colbert was quick to make a joke about it.

"You might be surprised to learn that Basil Marceaux.com has a website," Colbert said. "Presumably, Basil Marceux.com.com."

Now Jimmy Kimmel is interested in talking with Marceaux on his show "Jimmy Kimmel Live". Kimmel's producers reached out to NewsChannel 9 trying to set up an interview with Marceaux.

But is Marceaux, who has strong views on gun control and other political issues, just becoming a late-night punch line? Marceaux lives in Soddy Daisy, so we went to see if people there had any idea he was becoming an internet sensation. We showed the video to Charlie Pickett at his auto shop.

"I think he stands for a lot of good stuff, but people aren't going to take him seriously," Pickett said.

Marceaux posted a new video on YouTube this week, and it's getting tens of thousands of hits, too. But Andy Russ says he doesn't think it's for the right reasons.

"I think people are making fun of him more than anything," said Russ. "He's doing what he believes in and I wish him the best of luck in the world. It'd be kinda nice to have a governor from Soddy Daisy."

Basil will face-off with the other republican governor candidates in the the Tennessee primaries Thursday, August 5.

Click here to watch Marceaux's appearance on WSMV, here for Colbert's segment on Marceaux (which also takes aim at Tennessee governor hopeful Ron Ramsey), and here for Marceaux's newest YouTube video.