Monday, July 23, 2007 - 11:36 pm
Tonight the Democrats had their first "official" debate, co-sponsored by CNN and Google (YouTube). In case you missed it, the entire debate (actually broadcast on CNN and not YouTube) consisted of 30 second video questions submitted by random people to YouTube, and Anderson Cooper moderated. The candidates got only about 30 seconds to respond, and Cooper often didn't let every candidate respond to every question.
Although I often wanted to hear more from the more viable candidates (NOT Mike Fravel, Chris Dood, or Dennis Kucinich), the format was otherwise very refreshing. It was good to see everyday citizens instead of some stuff-shirt journalists asking the questions. While the candidates often took the opportunity to launch into canned answers, some of the questions were a little unpredictable and elicited passionate responses from the candidates.
The Republicans do their own YouTube debate in September - I'm looking forward to it!
Andrew
Monday, July 23, 2007 - 11:51 pm
A newspaper article I read brought up a point that this event could have been more grass roots people-powered if the questions had been selected by a public vote instead of being chosen/filtered by CNN.
I forgot to watch it. 
Tuesday, July 24, 2007 - 7:41 am
Reeks of media co-opting the net for some credence / relevance, etc... IMHO, not really people powered.
Good though. Totally enjoyable format, that issue aside.
Tuesday, July 24, 2007 - 8:59 am
It was humourous to see Mr Edwards have to defend his stance against same-sex marriage in front of a crowd of hostile democrats.
Herb
Tuesday, July 24, 2007 - 9:55 am
It will also be humorous to see Mr. Guiliani defend is stance as being pro-choice and pro-gay rights in front of a crowd of hostile republicans.
Tuesday, July 24, 2007 - 6:27 pm
