Liveblogging reactions to the YouTube debate tonight….

7 p.m. A good intro from a voter telling the candidates to stop beating around the (pause) bush.

Before the debate, Anderson Cooper said that from the 3,000 questions, they picked 50-60.

They start showing the silly videos. Damn. I knew they couldn’t help trying to make us, the people, look like asses.

Zack from Provo says we have a bunch of leaders who can’t do their jobs. “The issue don’t matter if when you get in power nothing’s going to get done…. How are you going to be any different?” It’s a rather pappy question and it engenders a pappy response about experience from Dodd: he might as well have hit the ‘play’ button his head. A stale start. “If someone really wants change, are you the guy?” Cooper asks. Silly question. Let’s talk issues, damnit.

Obama does his change dance. Special interests. Lobbyists. More prerecording. More stale bread.

Next asking Kucinich how we’d be better off with him. What a ridiculous softball. A snowball. I’m still waiting for one of the many questions of substance I saw in the 3,000 at YouTube.

(Note that our sister blog, Channel 08, is embedding the questions.)

7:10 and we’re still in papland.

A question from California for Clinton: “How would you define liberal?” Clinton says it used ot mean one was for freedom but in the last 30-40 years it has been turned on its head to mean big government. She prefers the word progressive — a modern progressive (I say that’s a copout… in any case, it says nothing about the issues).

Gravel goes of on a Gravelesque moment to attack Obama for taking money from lobbyists and Obama replies that he pushed through a law that made that open.

Now we’re asking them whether they can work with Republicans and which Republicans they’d pick as a running mate. 7:13 and I’m still waiting for substance.

Edwards now does his change dance. Same old same old.

In most debates, the audience is told not to applaud. Why are they clapping here?

I also find it irritating that they are not showing the videos full-screen, as if that would irritate us. It’s harder to watch them tiny.

Now it’s time for the candidates’ own videos. First, Dodd’s about his white hair. The experience dance.

Now a question about reparations for slavery. Edwards answers directly: He’s against it. But he says there are other issues of equality, including mortgage inequity. Question was rather ridiculous but Edwards gave us the first bit of substance on issues. Obama changes the subject to education, also improving on the question with is answer. Kucinich is the one on the stage who’s in favor of reparations. Figures.

Now we’re asking Dodd (why Dodd?) whether the response to Katrina would have been different if the storm had hit a white, affluent community. He takes it as a softball to go after Bush.

It’s 7:20 and we have someone asking the unrace-card question: Is Obama black enough? Another absurd one. Is Clinton a woman enough? Uh, she says, “I couldn’t run as anything other than a woman.” Well, this exchange has told us a lot. When she’s elected, Clinton says, it will send a good message to lots of boys and girls.

Edward — responding to a quote from Elizabeth Edwards saying her husband would be a better advocate for women than Clinton — declares that anyone who wouldn’t vote for Obama because he’s black or Clinton because she’s a women, “I don’t want their vote.” My, how brave.

Pap, pap, pap.

A great moment: My friend Mary Matthews’ question about gay marriage makes it onto the show. Bravo, Mary and Jen.

Kucinich: Yes. Dodd won’t go that far. Richardson pushes for domestic partnership and protection against hate and discrimination.

7:30: OK, they’re winning me back. Now they put up the other question on the topic I liked. A great one-two punch.

Edwards says he has had a journey on the issue. His wife is for gay marriage and he is not.

Clinton asked her viewers to make a video. They show it on a small screen within the small screen on my small TV and I can’t read it.

One quarter of the way through and we haven’t hit much substance yet.