CNN YouTube Debates: Better

You would think that YouTube and CNN would at least make sure that the sound was synced to the videos it used for the Republican presidential debates on Wednesday night. Not the case, unfortunately. It was almost like CNN was going out of its way to show that the questions came from the rudimentary videos of the people--from the trenches and living rooms of the Internet generation.

Besides that fairly annoying fact, the CNN YouTube debates for the Republican Party were a significant improvement over the Democratic debates in July.

In July, candidates were asked to respond to questions submitted via YouTube. CNN selected the questions to be used on the debate floor and the show producers seemed to choose questions that a typical moderator would have asked anyway. For the Republicans, CNN chose better.







Moderator Anderson Cooper said that over 5,000 videos were submitted, which is 2,000 more than the Democrats received. Questions ran the gamut: immigrant worker programs, the national budget, the death penalty, black-on-black crime, gun control, abortion, and of course, the Iraq war. As would be expected, there were plenty of Bible thumpers and gun-toters whose videos made the final cut.

"Do you believe every word of this book?" asked Joseph Dearing from Dallas, Texas, while holding up a Holy Bible.

"For those of you who would call yourself Christian conservatives, the death penalty: What would Jesus do?" asked Tyler Overman from Memphis, Tennessee.

"What is your opinion of gun control?" asked Jay Fox from Boulevard, California. "And don't worry," he said while cocking a large and menacing shotgun, "you can answer however you like."

A few of the more surprising videos that were let through included one from an African American father and son who asked about the best solution to black-on-black crime and another from an openly gay Army veteran. Another man asked about the significance of the stars and bars of the confederate flag, to which Governor Mitt Romney replied that he could not be bothered to discuss a flag that he did not recognize.

While this forum was interesting, you can hardly call it a debate. The candidates barely addressed one another at all, which is a defining characteristic of a debate. Instead, they answered the questions on the videos and moved on to the next, in an orderly fashion. No mud slinging, no interrupting, and no heavy sighing, the way Al Gore used to. You call that a debate!?

Also, who produced the videos on behalf of the candidates? Each candidate was asked to produce a 30-second spot on behalf of his campaign to be played intermittently throughout the debate. The spots looked like unfinished productions, and most of them did not even disseminate a complete thought or idea. They were hybrids of a political commercials and spotty YouTube videos. Several of the spots attacked New York Senator Hillary Clinton, which seemed more like a non sequitur than a strong point. The only comprehensive and well-produced videos were from Romney and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani. See for yourself--all spots are currently live on YouTube's Republican Debate page.

The discussion was wrapped up in the all-American fashion with questions about baseball. Giuliani defended himself for rooting for the Red Sox in the World Series, even though he is a Yankees fan, and Romney gloated about the Red Sox win and professed a profound hatred of the Yankees.

All in all, though, I think this round of the YouTube debates was a lot less gimmicky than the first round. The questions and medium of delivery actually did add value to the show in a way that they did not in the Democratic debates. And who won the debate? Well, I suspect you don't come to Ziff Davis for political coverage, so I will spare you my own personal take. I will, however, suggest you go where I go for political punditry:
Mark Halperin's The Page.

Post by Natali Del Conti