Friday, July 27, 2007

Scoring Debate Points

Reprinted with permission from National Journal magazine.

By K. Daniel Glover

CHARLESTON, S.C. -- What happens when a wild range of nonjournalists get to grill candidates in a presidential debate? After several weeks of hype, CNN and YouTube answered that question here this week in an innovative two-hour event that featured questions posed via video clips.

The result was a mix of serious and silly questions -- and serious ones in silly packaging, such as the snowman who asked the eight Democratic candidates what they would do about global warming "to ensure that my son will live a full and happy life."

Other questioners came across as plain scary. A Michigan man brandished an assault weapon as he asked the presidential wannabes what they would do to protect "my baby." New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson gave a polite answer about the importance of instant background checks for gun buyers, but Sen. Joseph Biden of Delaware lashed out at the questioner. "I don't know that he is mentally qualified to be owning that gun," Biden said. "I'm being serious.... I hope he doesn't come looking for me."

Many of the debate questions were ones that professional journalists probably wouldn't ask. To Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois: Are you black enough? To Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York: Are you feminine enough, and would you ever be taken seriously as president in talks with Arab nations that treat women as second-class citizens?

The candidates were quizzed on whether they support reparations for slavery, think that women should be eligible for the draft, and have talked to their kids about sex. But the questioners also touched on more-traditional debate topics: the Iraq war, genocide in Darfur, health care, education policy, and alternative energy.

Some of the queries were framed with precision and effectively exposed the candidates' differences. A question about whether the candidates would agree to unconditional diplomatic meetings with the leaders of Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Syria, and Venezuela revealed distinctions among the three front-running Democrats -- Clinton, Obama, and former Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina.

"This YouTube debate really started showing separation on who's going to take on Washington," Joe Trippi, a senior adviser to Edwards, said afterward. Trippi and other campaign aides joined the candidates and traditional talking heads in praising the new format, which CNN and YouTube will use for a Republican presidential debate in September. "It really is the voice of the people," said Peter Daou, Clinton's Internet director.

But Andrew Rasiej, founder and publisher of a website called TechPresident.com that tracks the candidates' use of the Internet, gave the overall production a C. He said that debate host Anderson Cooper too often let candidates "pivot off questions and go wherever they wanted."

Rasiej also complained that CNN had chosen the videos. "It all felt like they were trying to sprinkle a little bit of Internet gold dust on themselves and make themselves look cool," he said.In an interview with Rasiej after the debate, Trippi agreed to consider involving Edwards in a debate that TechPresident would organize. Internet users would pick the questions, Rasiej said.

Dan Gillmor, who heads the Center for Citizen Media at Harvard University, favors an even broader revolution in presidential debates. He said that candidates should agree to debates on the Internet that stretch over several days. Gillmor also said that they should embrace one-on-one debates "instead of having a contest to see who can come up with a glib sound bite."

CNN Senior Vice President David Bohrman said his network felt compelled to filter the questions to avoid having the process gamed by particular campaigns or by people who would have preferred goofy questions or costumes. He also acknowledged that the number of video questions and candidates presented a challenge."I felt robbed on time," Bohrman said. "I wanted to hear from every candidate on every question. But then you would [have gotten] only four questions."

Nevertheless, he said, CNN is eager to try the format again, not just with Republicans in September but also during the general election campaign. The debate showed that "there's clearly a place at the table for new media in electoral politics," Bohrman concluded.