Cutline Speaks

A Skeptic Not Yet Converted, But Working on It

posted by Megan on December 3, 2007

It may be that I don’t have enough faith in the American public, or in the political process, but anyway you look at it, I was seriously concerned about the CNN / YouTube debates. I figured the questions from the YouTube crowd would fall into one of three categories: slurs, jokes or irrelevance. I assumed there’d be a few serious questions in the mix, but I thought CNN would have to carry the load on those.

Fortunately, I’ve been wrong. And not only have I been wrong, but I can happily say that I’m finding the party debates to be far more interesting and engaging than in the past. I’m actually making it through without significant channel surfing - a pretty big feat in my house.

What YouTube and CNN have done is expand the political universe, even if just for a night or two. The questions from the YouTube users have been direct (is your campaign exploiting 9/11?), creative (do you believe every word of the Bible?) and important (how would you repair the image of America in the Muslim world?).

I’m not sure this will permanently change how candidates and citizens interact, but I can only hope so. It’s more progress than we’ve seen in a long time. Rather than leaving the debates to the experts and the pundits, real people are bringing their concerns about real issues to the table, and the candidates are actually looking a little more real as well.