Early returns

I wonder how many Americans watched the CNN/YouTube presidential….uh….debate. (I take exception to use of the term ‘debate’ for any of these events, Democratic or Republican, directed by questions from cyberspace or network news moderaters. They’re all staged platforms for doing stump speeches and giving talking points.)

Within the hour after it ended, CNN was still all over their coverage of….their coverage. And few other media were paying attention. This came up on MSNBC.

Democratic presidential hopefuls struggled Monday night to answer questions posed by young, Internet-savvy voters who challenged the candidates’ own place in a broken political system and posed questions about traditional political labels such as “liberal.”

“Wassup?” came the first question, from a voter named Zach whose video got the debate off to an unconventional start. He went on to ask how any of the Democrats would do better than the failed leadership in Congress and the White House.

“How are you going to be any different?”

That would have been a good opportunity to talk about reasons to elect them, and not reasons to vote against the other guys (or…woman). But an opportunity lost, yet again. It’s politics as usual. Except for the questions…

Before the questioning began, CNN opened the two-hour debate with a video from a voter named Chris. “Can you as politicians … actually answer questions rather than beat around the bush?”

Pun intended?

They actually did a log of beating around the bush.

The Republicans get a chance to do this same thing, same way, next week. Let’s hope they don’t.