Hillary Clinton: Homage to the Sopranos - With Carrot

The light-hearted video and song were supposed to prove the ultra-serious Democrat presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton had a sense of humor. But the campaign's accompanying spoof tribute to the Sopranos TV series appears to more strongly liken the former first lady to a mafia boss.

The video, produced by Mrs Clinton's campaign and issued this week, shows her sitting in a diner in upstate New York, flicking through jukebox selections as Journey's song Don't Stop Believin' plays in the background.

Suddenly the restaurant door opens. Enter husband Bill wearing a button-down shirt as favoured by the fictional mobster Tony Soprano.

Mrs Clinton pushes carrot sticks towards him as he sits down. "No onion rings?" asks the former president forlornly. "I'm looking out for you," his wife says in gritty Carmela Soprano style. "How's the campaign going?" he wonders, playing doting spouse. "Well, like you always say, focus on the good times," she replies - another bow to the Sopranos.

As the couple chat, a sinister looking figure walks past their table and scowls menacingly. This is the actor Vince Curatola, better known as New York mob boss Johnny "Sack" Sacramoni. There is a heavy pause as the viewer waits to see whether the couple will be rubbed out.

To probable Republican disappointment, they survive, unscathed. The video ends with Mrs Clinton playing Celine Dion's You and I on the jukebox, the winner, it transpires, of a website competition involving 200,000 people who voted to pick the official theme song of her election campaign.

With all the 2008 US presidential candidates vying to tap new media for novel ways of spreading their message, Mrs Clinton's effort was judged broadly successful yesterday.

"It's adroit, well acted, audacious," said an observer on PoliticsTV.com. "But Senator Clinton and Bill as Tony and Carmela? Is that a parallel the Clintons really want?"

The New York Post was in no doubt: "Clintons score mob hit ... never has Hillary looked so tough as boss of the family."

The video portrayed Mrs Clinton in a warm, humorous light, said Katharine Seelye, a New York Times critic. "But it raises the question: does she have to depend on her supporting actor, Mr Clinton, to be successful?"

In yet another echo of the Sopranos, whose final episode was screened in the US last week, Seelye warned: "Everybody in America wants to know how it's going to end."