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I usually watch CNN after my favorite evening news program mainly because 3o minutes of “news” isn’t quite enough for me to get a fix. The content on CNN is even more light weight, but I like to leave it on in the background while I prepare and eat dinner.

There’s been a lot a buildup to the YouTube Democratic debate on CNN. They’ve played the highlights of the questions people have uploaded in their videos to YouTube.com. To be honest, the whole thing didn’t get me that excited and for the most part, just seemed like a big gimmick that would ultimately reduce the debates to a game show. But in recalling presidential debates from campaigns past, that might actually be an improvement entertainment-wise.

I tuned in about 15 minutes into the debate last night (7/23/07) and didn’t give it my full undivided attention because as usual, I was preparing my dinner. However, I did manage to catch enough of it to get what I feel was the essence of the format:

• A stage crammed with Democratic hopefuls, with only 3 that have any kind of shot at the nomination
• A big monitor where the YouTube videos were shown. The candidates would all crane their necks to the right to watch.
• Anderson Cooper of CNN was the moderator — acting overly serious and periodically asserting control to remind the candidates to stay on topic. I’ve tried to give Anderson a chance in the past, but he just plain gets on my nerves for some reason. Is it just me?
• For most of the questions posed by video clip, only a few of the candidates were given a chance to respond to each question, which caused a few to insist on anwering the previous question before getting on to the current one.

I’d have to say that most all of the questions asked in the videos were good, but not too many really stick out in my mind this morning. The one that does though, is the one regarding health care, where a woman from Long Island, NY suffering from breast cancer pulls off her wig during her question about health insurance coverage. Very powerful, as were some of the ones from soldiers and their families regarding the war in Iraq.

But overall, the videos submitted were pretty ordinary in their production. For the most part, the questioner simply stood in front of the camera and asked their question. There’s certainly nothing wrong with that and for this type of debate, was probably the best choice considering the very tight time constraints.

Which brings up a question that’s been nagging me: what did the YouTube format contribute to the debate? When you get down to it, all YouTube really did was host the videos. The community features that make YouTube so powerful as a pioneering Web 2.0 technology really weren’t utilized for the debates. Was this really much different from debates in the past conducted as quasi town hall meetings where a microphone is passed around to pre-screened audience members?

I suppose, yes, it is different. Even though the video questions were carefully screened by CNN and by whoever else, the submission process was open to everyone. So in this regard I’d have to say it was a success, albeit one that was rough around the edges, but one that will certainly evolve and become tighter in the future.

So what else did I take away from the Democratic YouTube debate:

• Hilary Clinton’s voice really is obnoxious and I can’t image listening to it for 4 or Heaven help us, 8 years
• Barak Obama will be elected president of the US someday, but probably not in 2008
• Dennis Kucinich is an earnest candidate, but just looks too much like Gollum to be taken seriously
• GW Bush is too easy a target for Democratic candidates and they jumped on him and his record at every opportunity last night. The candidates that want to distinguish him/herself and move away from the pack will need to start looking elsewhere for targets and start getting away from prepared statements. Every candidate was guilty of that last night.
• The airing of the candidates’ political messages from YouTube during the debate was extremely tacky.
• For some reason applause was allowed during the YouTube debates. As I recall from presidential debates in the past, this was forbidden or does that not apply to the party debates? Either way, I kind of like the applause. It gives the audience a chance to express themselves and is a good gauge for how a candidate is scoring with the public.

I tuned away from the debates at 9 since “Sin City” was getting started on SpikeTV. At that point I had seen enough to know what I would be missing and it was time for some real blood and guts.