Today’s Good News: CNN/YouTube Debate Leaves Audience Riveted
I have never enjoyed user-generated video so much. Who needs cats flushing a toilet when you can have a father-and-son snowman team asking a question about global warming?Kudos to Anderson Cooper, CNN, and all who participated in the big show. There was teeth-gnashing in the blogosphere about the fact that CNN chose the questions rather than having them voted on, but believe me, you need professionals to make the most of this kind of situation.
Candidates being what they are, questions were dodged and re-framed as usual. However, the combination of impertinent regular people asking real questions, and Mr. Cooper continually hammering the candidates to actually answer said questions, was quite delightful. They really were questions that would never be asked in a traditional debate.
Some of the video questions were truly creative, others simply heartfelt. The aforementioned melting snowmen was one of my favorites; another was the heavy metal video-with-posters question about No Child Left Behind - “Scrap or revise? Don’t tell me no lies!” Another was an inquiry about which candidates would be willing to work for the minimum wage. One killer feature: having some actual questioners in the audience, to whom Cooper could turn and ask, “Do you feel he answered your question?”
Telling moments: Obama unable to say that he would require those earning over $97K to contribute to Social Security. Gravel screaming at Hillary how she and the DLC had destroyed everything. Kucinich, the ONLY one making the so-incredibly-obvious point that Democrats could stop the war if they stopped voting to fund it.
Great theater. Sadly, but honestly, it showed that some things are still just completely missing from this whole discussion.  A couple of questions asked about the need to raise taxes to pay for all the things we want. The Dems had various waffle tactics on that. Not one, however, was able to say that if we cut military spending, we could have everything we want and need without raising taxes. Check out TrueMajority if you want to do something about that here.
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