Repub/YouTube Debate Is Back
By Justin Gardner | Related entries in 2008 Election, Technology
Good call, but it’s going to be a while before we actually get to see it. Last part of November now.
This just in: The Republican CNN/YouTube debate, in limbo for the past few weeks, is on again.But Mitt Romney, who won Saturday’s Iowa straw poll and has criticized the debate format, has yet to commit to the Nov. 28 event.
Sources at CNN said the debate, co-hosted with the Republican Party of Florida, will be held at the Mahaffey Theatre in St. Petersburg. Steve Grove, head of news and politics at YouTube, said that more than 1,100 videos have been submitted, and the popular video-sharing site will allow YouTube users to upload their videos until Nov. 27.
The process is the same as the Democratic debate in Charleston, S.C.: Questions can’t be more than 30 seconds long, and CNN’s political team, led by Washington bureau chief David Bohrman, will select the 30 or so videos for the debate. CNN drew some criticism for including the Billiam (snowman) question, but Bohrman, the mastermind of the YouTube-CNN marriage, defended the call in a recent interview with The Washington Post: “It was a really good question, and it was funny. I think running for president is serious business … but we do want to know that the president has a sense of humor.”
Of course he/she should have a sense of humor. This is a YouTube debate after all. And should any President worth their salt be insulted by a question from a snowman?
And let me also note that Romney uses YouTube more than most top tier candidates to distribute his campaign videos, so he should just bit the bullet and take relevant questions from anybody, snow-based or not.
What this does set up is a chance for CNN to mess with Romney and have the snowman come back to specifically ask him a question. This also gives Mitt a chance to be a good sport about it and not seem like such a self-important, blue-blood, wet blanket.
I guess we’ll see…
This entry was posted on Sunday, August 12th, 2007 and is filed under 2008 Election, Technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
