CNN YouTube Debate - "Afterglow Interruptus"
If you didn’t catch Monday’s CNN YouTube Debate, you missed a pretty good “show”. The questions were far more poignant than the usual stale queries posed by the media, and the format allowed the person asking the question to decide whether the responding candidate had adequately answered. I hope Wolf Blitzer was watching!
I’m saddened by such a “Hollywood entertainment” approach to extracting more direct answers from candidates. We’ll see if the format pans out in the long run. But for now, it seems to be a step, albeit an odd one, in the right direction. Here’s an answer to one question I found particularly telling. Once a class action trial lawyer, always a class action trial lawyer.
Here’s a video link to all the questions and the candidates’ responses. If you watched, did you learn anything meaningful about the Democrat candidates? Will you watch the forthcoming CNN YouTube Republican debate? What do you think of this format?
Doug
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Reader Comments (4)
The only halfway plausible candidate in this assembly hasn't a snowball's chance in hell of winning the party's nod. The rest are more of what's wrong with the country. And the ambulance chaser isn't even the worst. That honor goes to the devil.
I really am worried about this. Most serious voters won't even watch these, but the Nintendo crowd will and they will be influenced by the show rather than the substance, especially when they watch the candidates' Youtube responses.
I watched and thought it was entertaining (more than the usual debates) and I liked the questions better. I agree the format is a little theatrical, but it was aimed at a demographic that seldom gets involved in knowing the candidates positions on issues. I don't think its a valid format for everyone, but young people will probably enjoy it. Yes, I will watch the Republican YouTube debate. Yes I think I learned a couple things about the candidates I didn't know before.
Pros: Good questions. And I liked that there appeared to be no compulsary requirement that each candidate received an equal number of direct questions. If most people wanted to ask the frontrunners questions, that is of whom the questions were asked.
Cons: A Q&A spectacle more than a serious debate of the issues.
I will watch the next debate. I won't watch the candidates' "YouTube" videos.
I will wait and see if the format influences more than the video crowd.