Decius wrote:

Hate to be cynical, but I honestly think for Edwards the metric of success is how many dollars are donated to his campaign through the web site.

I don't think the youtube debate was really any easier to get into than to be a question asker in a televised debate, do you?

Nah, not cynical at all... That's definitely a fair and realistic point. Oddly though, in the article, Edwards' campaign manager was trying to correlate site hits to calendar-based milestones in the campaign, which just seemed like a strange way to try to understand the vitality of the campaign, which the article implied. Money definitely is the loudest, most persuasive talker political talker, to be sure.

I don't think it's a question of ease of asking a question so much as opportunity. In a televised debate on say a college campus, the audiences are very small and obviously hand picked. I can remember attendee questions in 2004 that were so obnoxiously nuanced that you can tell the speaker had won some sort of problems of democracy pageant in their 300 level government course and that's why they were there, or some deviation there of (dating the dean's daughter, etc.). Enter in user submissions from YouTube, now, in theory at least, anyone in the country, Republican or Democrat (would hope this is an open debate), has the chance to be heard or considered. Now, keep in mind, CNN took the safe route and aired only pre-screened, pre-selected questions, but the point is, someone from Seattle could have taken part in a debate being held geographically in Georgia, for example. Admittedly, they're still subjected to the same question cherry-picking any debate seems to be, but at least now we've got the opportunity to be rejected, where as that never existed before. The questions got rated in the YouTube submissions (most popular question revolved around impeachment of the Bush Admin., but that didn't get asked), and, it seems to me the most democratic thing to do would have been pose the top 10 questions to the candidates, with the assumption that they're in the top because they're intelligent/well-thought out and represent the conscience of those who want to participate. Now, that didn't happen, but it does seem to me that this concept floated out there (however half-assed) but CNN, is at least a toe-dip into the pool of a more democratic, more open debate (powered by the Internet) in this country with regard to these elections. I just hope the country dives headfirst in at some point for some raw discussion (political skinnydipping?).

RE: Interwebs and Politics?