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YouTube to Host Presidential Debate

Posted by Zonk on from the bringing-dancing-cats-to-the-world-of-politics dept.

skotte writes "Wired is reporting that July 23 at the Citadel in Charleston, South Carolina, Anderson Cooper will host presidential debates in which debaters are asked 20-30 questions culled from a specially designated section of YouTube, where the voting populace can post questions directly. You and I (assuming you're American, probably) can ask questions ourselves, not just a reporter in a crowd. Candidates won't know which questions they are being asked, and the video selection process will remain a complete secret. Interesting, but also the slightest bit scary."

7 of 180 comments (clear)

  1. Been done before by Harmonious+Botch · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Ok, video is new, but this has been done before with more traditional formats. We've seen questions from the audience - sometimes even live - to presidential candidates before. The problem has always been not the questions, but the answers. Ask any question you want, but there is no way to compel the candidate to really answer it. Most don't.

    What they do is speak about the topic with prepared mini-speeches...

    Voter: Sir, does the right to free speech mean I can burn a flag?

    Candidated: Let me tell you, I stand second to none in my love for the flag or this great country that it stands for. That flag represents all the people who have risked their lives and died to save her...

    And after ten minutes of posturing and spouting non-sequiturs, he still will not have said yes or no. But for some reason, most people do not seem to notice the fact.

    What we need is not a new way of asking questions, but a new way of getting answers.

    I personally favor the rack.

    1. Re:Been done before by Timesprout · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Exactly what I was thinking. Even the rotweiller interviewers on the BBC's NewsNight team frequently can't even get a yes or no answer from their political interviewees to simple direct questions. Is it embarassing for the politicians? Yes, but no where near as damaging for most of them as opening their mouths to demonstrate just how incompetent they are. Most politicians are accomplished media actors these days and highly adept at taking 5 mins and 6 thousand words to say absolutely nothing of any meaning or relevance to the question they were actually asked.

      --
      Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
      What truth?
      There is no dupe
    2. Re:Been done before by drinkypoo · · Score: 3, Interesting

      But it must be exactly on of those, nothing else.

      I think yes, no, or refuse to answer should be the opening of their answer, and be Required to be so, but I still want to hear the justification for their position.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  2. Anonymity? by HTH+NE1 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    the voting populace can post questions directly. You and I... can ask questions ourselves, not just a reporter in a crowd. Candidates won't know which questions they are being asked, and the video selection process will remain a complete secret.
    So the questions will be presented in video format....

    Can I ask mine while wearying a Guy Fawkes mask?
    --
    Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
  3. Re:Ron Paul by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Also, Rudy "America's Mayor" Giuliani appears to be an ignorant, bafoon ready to rush headfirst in to the next quagmire that even looks like it would "fight terror" next to him.

    I mean here we have Ron Paul, a long shot candidate that is clearly more in touch with reality than any of the front runners. Then we have Rudy Giuliani who seems like he would be better suited to a roll as a "news" reporter for Faux News than as a President, but is considered a top tier candidate.

    It's almost like the Republican party is for proudly ignorant fascists with their collective head in the ground. Oh wait. It is. Nevermind. Ban Ron Paul.

  4. Re:Sounds interesting, but Anderson Cooper? by deftcoder · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Stephen Colbert would make an interesting host

    --
    Peace sells, but who's buying?
  5. Bait and switch by guspasho · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The Politico, a right-wing news site, ran this same scam ahead of one of the GOP debates a few months back. They held a contest to have the most popular question submitted be asked during the debate they were sponsoring.

    This questions topped the heap at the end of the contest.

    * Should the President have power to imprison U.S. citizens without charging them with a crime and without providing them a judicial forum in which they can contest the accusations against them, as the Bush administration did to American Jose Padilla?

    * Do you think the process of waterboarding -- where the U.S. takes prisoners, straps them to a chair, and pours water on their face so they are in terror of drowning to death -- is a practice consistent with America's moral credibility in the world?

    * A recent worldwide poll showed that under the Bush presidency, America has become the third most unpopular country in the world -- right behind Iran and just ahead of North Korea. Why do you believe that has that happened?

    The winner never got asked, nor any of the other top vote-getting questions. Instead we had them asking inane questions about whether the candidates believed in evolution and a bunch of cheap shots at Bill Clinton.