<< On July 23, at 7 p.m. ET on CNN, you get to make political history in the first CNN/YouTube Debate. Live from Charleston, South Carolina, all eight Democratic presidential candidates on the You Choose '08 platform will answer the questions you've submitted through videos right here on YouTube. >>

I think this can either be a really cool format for future debates or pretty lame if they only select generic questions from the pool of YouTube questions. The Republicans will have this type of debate on September 17th in Florida.

http://www.youtube.com/blog?entry=zYGdTFWTSU4

So I missed the debate tonight but figured I could follow up with what happened by going to YouTube instead.

YouTube posted a page about the debates with all of the questions that were used. But where are the candidate responses to the question? The list of videos also lists which candidates responded to the question but I can't seem to find a video of any of the responses. :(

http://www.youtube.com/debates

I read the AFP article about that, they say it wasn't as great as it had to be.

I hope they post the responses, too, or else it's pretty useless.

The candidate responses are now the default videos under each question. Why didn't they just do that from the beginning?

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> Why didn't they just do that from the beginning?

I guess they had to actually prepare the videos and upload them etc... takes some time. It just happened yesterday right?

Wait, I still don't see the responses. I see the footnote, but it's not linked, and clicking on "post a response" doesn't do the job either...

(Seeing the responses now, but still not linked.)

My take on the debates is that ALL candidates should have answered most of the questions. When 2 of 8 candidates reply to a question it doesn't really seem like a debate any more. If its an issue with time slots on CNN, then expand the time slot alloted for the debate.

I agree with the idea that the American people should have been allowed to vote on which questions made it into the debate. Maybe we could have seen the candidates discuss more things that matter to Americans.

Your story says :
Most observers agreed that none of the candidates debating at The Citadel in Charleston, South Carolina, particularly outshone their rivals, doing nothing to challenge Sen. Hillary Clinton’s position as the Democratic race’s front-runner.

I saw a poll today that said 41% of viewers thought Obama won the debate, and only 13% thought Hillary won. So who are the "observers" that you are talking about. Is the author of this pulling for Hillary or what?

CNN's story about the debate lists a highlight that reads:

<< Observers say no candidate stood out enough to challenge front-runner Clinton. >>

http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/07/23/debate.main/index.html

There are probably a ton of polls out there that will show who did better in the debate and I bet they are all different too.

“Though CNN vetted the questions, it was the first time that a journalist or a professional has not dictated what is asked of the candidates.”

What doublespeak! Because CNN vetted the questions, they absolutely dictated what was asked of the candidates.

> So who are the "observers" that you are talking about.

Just to clarify, that was a quote from CNN...

I watched this show and I have to agree the tough questions were not selected!!

"it was the first time that a journalist or a professional has not dictated what is asked of the candidates.”"

yeah, but who selected the question ?? they should have a bot that selected from the range of the entries available.. it then would be totally fair to both the panel and the audience!!

I'm surprised there is an Obama ad on this page and not a Clinton ad. Obama was only referenced once before my post but Clinton was referenced more.

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