DebateScoop.org: Preview of Previews of the GOP YouTube Debate

Preview of Previews of the GOP YouTube Debate

By Ross Smith 11/28/2007 04:14:55 PM EST

To get ready for tonight's GOP CNN/YouTube presidential primary debate (8pm EST on CNN and streamed at CNN.com) I read the blogs and the papers so you wouldn't have to. If you want to check my work or read more, I bookmarked everything for you at del.icio.us.

To find the best of the web on tonight's debate just go to del.icio.us and insert the following (no quote marks, no commas) into the search box there: GOP youtube debatescoop. To narrow the search to articles focused on the questions add the word questions. To narrow to pieces previewing and predicting add the word preview.

After the debate you can do the same search but add winners/losers to find items discussing how the debate turned out.

But for now, you can simply click on "read more" to find my synthesis of the news and my own take aways from it. . . .

Tags: debate, debates, 2008 elections, republican presidential primary, youtube, GOP, questions, formats, roundup

The questions should be somewhat different than those posed by the usual journalists. The public tends to be more interested in the candidates' character and in the issues. Journalists are relatively more interested in the horse race and "inside baseball" campaign questions. Recent debates have begun with questions about electability and about whatever the campaign narrative of the moment is. The YouTube questions are not as time sensitive or horse race focused.
The media narrative is in quite a bit of tension with the preceding paragraph. A number of the preview articles are predicting "fireworks" because the front runners, Romney and Giuliani, have recently been attacking one another and because Huckabee poses a new threat to both of them. Thompson, McCain, and Ron Paul have been trying to get their shots in, too.
Resolving this tension is up to the candidates and moderator Anderson Cooper. The candidates can choose to answer a question by contrasting themselves with a specific opponent. But making such an "attack" fit in the context of an "earnest question from a citizen" is tricky. Cooper can move the debate into fight mode by asking follow ups. The debate will not be nothing but audience questions.
The CNN producers claim to be filtering the 5000 submitted questions into the 40 or so used for the two hour debate so as to select questions the "Republican voter" is interested in. How do they know what those are? What stereotype will they use? Listening to the questions will tell you as much about the CNN producers' world view as it will anything. Where do the Ron Paul voters fit? Many questions were submitted from people claiming to be gay Republicans. Will those questions be discarded as Democratic "gotchas"?
It is becoming clearer than ever that the GOP front runners should have done this debate months ago as first scheduled. Their excuse originally was that late September was too busy. I did justice to that bit of nonsense at the time and you can read it by clicking here. But the schedule is much more crowded now, there has not been a debate in a month, the primaries and caucuses start right after New Years, and candidates must "make a move" which increases the tension noted above.
I predict Huckabee will be the biggest story. First, he is rising fast in polls, not only in Iowa. Second, he has always done well in debates and his folksy, funny style may wok especially well in the context of YouTube questions.
Academic focus on the questions themselves could be fruitfully extended in light of the YouTube debates and other mashup formats. Alex Lamballe is doing a review of all of the literature on debate questions and offers a taste here. Studies on questions could also use as a springboard the work begun by the BFTF group evaluating the questions used in the Democratic YouTube debate in July.