The YouTube presidential debate

[geekman33]

Does anyone give a fuck????

[peggygee]

I actually saw a preview of some of the questions, it looks
pretty interesting.

[Ecstatic]

My wife is taping it. She's a political junkie, tapes Meet Depressed and the Chris Matthews show, lol.

[Legend]

Some of the videos are hilarious and seeing the candidates reaction is priceless but other than that its the your typical boring debate.

[BrendaQG]

I'm watching it and it is interesting. The candidates making the best points are the ones who are not popular. The popular ones dance around the question. You know same ol same ol .

[Quinn]

What a pander-fest. So much talking without saying anything. There have been some funny moments though.

-Quinn

[tsntx]

i watched the whole thing and rather enjoyed it more then normal debates but i didnt see it as too much different then a "normal" one... maybe a lil more relaxed... but not much

[Mister Uptempo]

There was a time when debates were interesting, and actually had substance to them.

Back when the Presidential debates were sponsored and run by the League of Women Voters, the candidates had little or no say at to the content of the debate, much less the questions being asked.

The two major political parties have long since taken that power out of the hands of the League. Debates are the exclusive domain of the Republicans and Democrats. They determine the subject matter, the questions that are asked, who will be allowed to asked them, as well as minutiae like camera placement, angles, and lighting.

If you might recall, a few days ago, two of the Democratic front runners, Edwards and Clinton, were even recorded, during an unguarded moment, discussing who they believe should be included and not included in further debates.

It all gets back to what a terrible, whoring-for-money, lowest common denominator process elections have become.

[ducktales]

it was quite shallow and pedantic

[Yetanothervickilover]

eh, it was more like a questionnaire than a debate...i hate how that is wrongly mislabeled. that said, this format did seem more interesting than the ones of years past.

[goldensamba]

Does anyone give a fuck????

We should all give a fuck considering where our country is now.

The format was better but the only way to make it a real debate is to let those people ask a follow up question when the candidate dances around the question. Anderson Cooper had to continually ask Hillary to actually answer the question asked instead of going ot her talking points.

Now...the republican side should be even more interesting because as much as I am not super enamoured with the democratic choices the republicans are a shambles. They have 11 canidates and the only half way decent one (Ron Paul) has a snow balls chance in hell of getting elected.

[phxguy]

Does anyone give a fuck????

You seem to care enough to post a thread on this subject.

[SteamMillenia]

Politics in general in the US would probably be a whole lot more interesting if we could get a second party. Every since the Democrats and Republicans merged it's been pure dullsville.

Does anyone out there really think these elections are any more legitimate than those good ol' Soviet ones?