Comments on: Teeing Up the First YouTube Debate

By: Marshall Kirkpatrick

Marshall Kirkpatrick — Mon, 23 Jul 2007 22:37:29 +0000

Ah screw it, after a whole day of reading about these debates all over the web I guess maybe it will be at least a little fun to watch :) sorry to be such a blowhard in comments.

By: Craig Rubens

Craig Rubens — Mon, 23 Jul 2007 19:12:51 +0000

The political and democratic productivity of this will depend on which filtered and selected video questions get asked. While it is entirely antithetical to the democratic nature of YouTube to selectively filter the videos, this structure still has potential to break new ground in the political realm of our expanding participatory culture.

While I have my reservations about the selection process, this is the biggest contest YouTube has hosted yet. Here, selected videos will be seen by the biggest audience any “wining” video has had before. As such, I’m surprised the likes of “Obama Girl” and “Hott4Hill” haven’t put together a short, choreographed, midriffed video asking about Iraq, health care, or renewable energy. The face (and belly) time could be huge!

By: Marshall Kirkpatrick

Marshall Kirkpatrick — Mon, 23 Jul 2007 18:24:22 +0000

This could be a really defining opportunity if someone steps up to the plate (to keep the sports metaphors coming) but I place my bet on bullshit, nothing but empty silly bs, from candidates. Meanwhile the hardest hitting questions won’t get asked of course – it’ll be bread and butter topics like health care, the cost of Iraq, global warming and maybe habeas corpus. Given the state of the world, these twits need to be asked the kinds of questions that should melt any illusion that things in this country are anywhere near ok. imho