If your head has been buried in the digital sand (I'm looking at you, break.com), you've not heard about the CNN/YouTube debate for the Democratic primary contenders. It's tomorrow at 4PM PST / 7PM EST. CNN is writing a bunch of self-aggrandizing articles (about themselves), claiming that the debate, where YouTube users send in video questions to the debaters, will change image politics in a way similar to that of the Nixon/Kennedy TV debate of 1960.
They couldn't be more right. This will truly be the most compelling debate we have seen in our lifetimes, as candidates will be forced out of their comfort zones, finding no solace in their shopworn talking point pontification techniques.
Not.
How is this bullshit going to sound any different than any other debate we've heard so far? It's not. Instead of a local commentator, or a local labor type guy, or a local journalist asking the questions of the participants, the format will call for the candidates to look at a big video screen, and to watch. Watch... a World Wide Web user... ask... a question. Luckily, they had almost 2,000 idiots send in a bunch of questions, so it won't be too hard to track down uncomfortable, quirky versions of the questions previous debates already addressed, numerous times:
"Yo, I'm asking this question from my brother's bedroom. See, he died in Iraq, so it's not his bedroom anymore. We're trying to figure out what to do with his stuff. What is your plan to change course in Iraq?"
$cha-ching!$
Same shit, different temperature. I will be baffled if it's anything other than a series of Tee Ball questions, with the same series of sequential tees we've seen a million goddamn times. We do Iraq. Then we do health care. Then we do Johnny Can't Read. Then we do Patriot Act. Not forgetting that, of course, there will be mild discomfort from seeing all these seemingly random bafoons asking questions from their basement, in grainy, sepia tones. I just don't see how it changes the tone, changes the debate, or changes the mindset of the candidates.
No one's going to miss a beat.
I had a YouTube question, but then I realized two things: 1. I have a face for radio. 2. They'd never pick my question. It went something like this:
When will you all stop pretending to debate each other? Why are you afraid to engage one another in the streets, in passionate, realistic debate? You guys are afraid of having people see you actually argue about issues in real time. Your format has been the same for decades. Would you ever submit to a debate where you weren't on a stage, answering Tee Ball questions in sequential, stump speech fashion? Why can't you answer questions about whatever the fuck your constituency wants to hear you answer questions about? Why don't you debate your fellow contenders as frequently as you deliver stump speech drivel in Iowa and New Hampshire, on a variety of topics, in real time?
I'd desperately love to see "message control" in American democracy die a quick death. It's happening faster than many of us think, but don't pretend, for even a second, that the CNN/YouTube debates will throw the highly-groomed stable of non-engaged Democratic presidential candidates into any territory in which they'd be uncomfortable. They wouldn't show up if they didn't already know they weren't going to suffer the humiliation of thinking in real-time and addressing what the average YouTube user would like them to address.
I'll wait for the actual "new media" equivalent of televised presidential debates. The rest of you can stoke the fires of "ain't the web/Flash video great" masturbatory furor whilst getting the same treatment from your would-be leaders as you've always gotten: kid gloves.
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