On Monday, July 23rd, something historical in the political sphere took place.  With over 2.6 million tv viewers, the marriage between political debates and online-video stream phenom, Youtube, took place where 39 out of over 3000 video-questions were chosen for each of the Democratic Presidential candidates to respond to.  One goal was to personalize and bridge the gap between the everyday normal audience and politicians.  Another indirect goal was to show how advanced and democratic America is by allowing such an interaction to take place.  It seemed like it was almost a matter of time for something like this to take place as Youtube’s dominance has pretty much spoken for itself.

 Moving away from the actual historic element and into what actually took place, there were questions posed via Youtube concerning everything from what these candidates are actually going to do to make America better in 2008 to Iraq to issues of race, gender, and homosexuality.  While there were many serious video/questions that were posed, CNN also made it a point to “American Idol-ize” the debate by showing gimmicky videos with individuals attempting to drive humor.  For example, one individual wore a snowman outfit while posing a question about global-warming (pretty clever!). 

One big question that was asked that seemed to gain a lot of attention was the one about whether, as President, each of the candidates would visit “rogue” nations such as Cuba, North Korea, et. al.  in their first year of Presidency. Obama, more or less, said that he would while Clinton said that she wouldn’t.  This sparked some off-line tit for tats where individuals in Clinton’s camp said Obama’s answer indicated that he was naive and untenured while Obama’s people said that it would be asinine to think that Obama would walk in those nations blindly. They did say, however, that America is looking for unique and disparate ways of diplomacy and that Obama will offer those solutions.

 For those who missed the one airing on Monday, get ready for the Republic CNN/Youtube debates airing on September 17th.  For those who caught the recent debate, what were your thoughts? Did anyone submit a video that wasn’t chosen? Do you think Obama’s response came from inexperience and naievete?

P.S: Damn, i wonder how much Youtube execs got paid off for this…cot damn!

 ~Thesis