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GOP YouTube debates: Good marks for new views of candidates

A new style of debating has sprung from Internet savvy, and it's beneficial to voters, experts say.

from the November 30, 2007 edition

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When the September YouTube debate for the Republicans was canceled, the GOP blogosphere lit up. The party's Web-savvy activists argued that their candidates were making a big mistake in alienating the very people who have embraced the Internet as an important medium for reaching out to voters. At this point just about every demographic is engaging online, though less so with low-income people, the least educated, and some older people.

Internet executives see the integration of the Web into the political process deepening by the day. From 2000, when Arizona Sen. John McCain showed the Web's value in fundraising, to 2006, when then-Sen. George Allen of Virginia botched his reelection campaign by uttering an apparent slur that was caught on video and posted on YouTube, the Web has changed politics for good. On Jan. 1 and 2 – right before the Jan. 3 Iowa caucuses – the social-networking site MySpace will host an Internet presidential "primary" that the candidates are taking seriously.

"You ignore the digital space and the MySpace generation at your political peril," says Jeff Berman, senior vice president of public affairs at MySpace in Los Angeles.

And so the CNN/YouTube debate was revived for Nov. 28. The irony is that, by holding the debate two months later than originally planned and only five weeks before the Iowa caucuses – the crucial first nominating contest – the stakes were much bigger than they would have been in September. It was the first GOP debate in a month, and with the race for the nomination wide open, anticipation was high. CNN received almost 5,000 video submissions, 2,000 more than they received for the Democratic debate. Of those, 34 were used.

Viewership ratings are not yet known, but at the quadrennial College Convention in Manchester, N.H., students tuned in.

"The Democrats had been going after the youth vote, and now the Republicans are trying to jump on that, too," says Austin Lyman, a sophomore at St. Mary's College in St. Mary's City, Maryland.

"It's nice to see that they recognize that YouTube is a means of communication and connection," added Mr. Lyman, who is from Birmingham, Ala. "Republicans are often known as old-school traditionalists, not seeing the new light. They're the Grand Old Party. [The debate] shows that maybe the old dog can learn new tricks." 

Emmanuel Balogun of Pawtucket, R.I., a sophomore at New England College in Henniker, N.H., is a registered Democrat. But with this debate, he says, "I finally saw some likable characters in the Republican Party."

Mr. Balogun thought former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee was the most "genuine" with his answers. "He was prepared for all the shots thrown at him," he says.

Ari Pinkus contributed to this report from Manchester, N.H.

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