Just a couple of days ago the 2008 USA presidential race took a bit of an different route. Candidates are trying to adjust and make the most of new technologies and Youtube has become the latest battle field. Potentially people from all around the globe could participate in the debate, all they had to do was submit a video with a question. And while this sounds a little more democratic, it wasn’t perfect; CNN made a final selection of questions, and the common “follow up question” wasn’t possible. None the less, I guess this means that politicians are ever more concerned with the voting power of younger people, who aren’t always active political participants. Besides, this format allows candidate with limited resources to reach a very large amount of people.
Candidates have also moved to creating accounts and uploading videos that paint them in a positive light. As of today Hillary Clinton has uploaded 51 videos, while Barack Obama has posted 141 videos. Although as should be expected, satire has followed them here as well. Such is the case the the Obama Girl video, the Obama Girl vs. Giuliani Girl video, and John Edwards’ Feeling Pretty video.
We’ll have to wait and see how the Republicans do with this medium in a couple of weeks when they participate in in their own Youtube debate, on September 17. You can participate as well by submitting a question here.
Here is CNN’s transcript of the debate.