I found the concept of the YouTube debates quite appealing and was excited to watch the show. Unfortunately, I was confused about the start time and missed most of the program. I should have known that there would be a way (aside from the professional spin people) to catch up. Sure enough, individual questions and responses are available from YouTube.
I have been attempting to determine how I would identify all questions submitted for this debate. This body of material (approx. 3000 if I remember the post debate comments from last evening correctly) would be interesting to analyze. For the cynical, it might be interesting to attempt to determine if this really was the “people’s” debate – did those who selected questions simply examine the pool to locate the questions that they thought would make an interesting program. This issue was discussed in the post-debate analysis. It was argued that allowing people to review the material submitted and vote on the questions to be asked would not be acceptable because those most invested (groups associated with candidates) could simply manipulate the online vote. Taking a look at some randomly selected set of questions would make a great student project.
Anyway – I think there is a way to call up the submissions – search for “The CNN/YouTube Democratic Debate” to view a much larger body of content.
