Nina’s out at the race track and she asks Rudy Giuliani if he’s capitalizing on 9/11 by making a lot of money for his speaking enagagements.
Mark from Las Vegas notes that Governor Romney has changed his mind on a number of issues over the year and asks “Am I looking at a candidate with a core of deeply held beliefs or am I looking at Plastic Man?
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A black Elvis impersonator wants to know what the candidates will do “to bridge this racial divide that so often plagues this great nation of ours. Thank you. Thank you very much.”
I just went through YouTube to see which candidates had the most videos about them. This is a flawed survey because when I search for “Hillary Clinton” all YouTube is doing is responding with videos tagged “Hillary Clinton” and people can throw any tag on any video in hopes that it will be seen. Still, this turns into another interesting gauge of heat and strategy.
I went on this search because I was curious just how much Ron Paul video there was in YouTube. A handful of his rabid supporters have done an incredible job taking over YouTube. Videos about him are everywhere. Videos everywhere are tagged Ron Paul. This leads to an impression that he is everywhere: one guy with 100 hats on sticks over the fort wall.
Here are the counts. Keep in mind that these are not videos by the candidates but videos tagged with the candidates’ names. Keep in mind also that many videos are tagged with more than one candidate’s name. Do not use these numbers for betting. They are for entertainment purposes only…
DEMOCRATS
Barack Obama: 18,000
Hillary Clinton: 16,600
John Edwards: 16,000
Dennis Kucinich: 2,400
Mike Gravel: 2,300
Joe Biden: 2,300
Bill Richardson: 1,340
Chris Dodd: 1,130
Note that Dodd has been doing some of the most innovate YouTube work. At least in this measure, it hasn’t caught fire inspiring more videos to be made.
REPUBLICANS (hang onto your hats)
Ron Paul (drumroll please): 43,500
Rudy Giuliani: 6,960
John McCain: 6,770
Mitt Romney: 4,980
Fred Thompson: 1,310
Mike Huckabee: 441
Duncan Hunter: 427
Tom Tancredo: 321
Sam Brownback: 243
The Republicans’ strategy of avoiding YouTube seems to be working.
YouTube upgrades its Youchoose portal with issue links, where you’ll see videos the candidates submitted giving their stands on a growing list of topics. YouTube’s Steve Grove explains:
Over 1000 voter questions for the Republican CNN/YouTube debate have been submitted to date. Here’s a sampling of some of the latest clips:
Looks like video gaming generation is mobilizing. Here’s Eddie — another gamer who doesn’t have a problem with video game violence — and he wants to know if the candidates do.
The Democratic CNN/YouTube debate featured a question from a snowman, so perhaps the Republican debate will include this question from Santa. Mr. Claus is concerned, naturally, about children.
David from Los Angeles says that many African-Americans hold fairly conservative views on a number of issues and asks the Republican candidates: “Why don’t we vote for you?”
Here’s a sampling of some recent questions for the Republican CNN/YouTube debate.
David wants to know if each candidate would accept the support of the Log Cabin Republicans.
Here’s a new topic. Jess is a video gamer who doesn’t believe that video game violence causes real violence. He wants to know how the candidates will protect his right to play inFamous.
Hey Rudy! Kevin from Georgia wants to know if you become President, would you hire Bernard Kerik.
And on the lighter side: Matt from Missouri says he’s been influenced by Ayn Rand, Milton Firedman, Russell Kirk and Friedrich Hayek and asks the candidates which political philosopers have influenced them.
While the fate of the CNN/YouTube Republican debate may be debatable, voter video questions continue to roll in. Here’s a sampling of some recent submissions:
Joe in Austin asks whether US financial aid to Israel is “excessive.”
The war on drugs hasn’t worked says Dean from Houston. Isn’t it time to consider legalization?
The leading Republican candidates may be hesitant about taking part in a CNN/YouTube debate, but voters aren’t showing any reluctance in asking them questions. Here’s a sampling of some of the nearly 700 questions submitted to date:
A young Japanese-American man, who says his American-born grandparents were interned during World War II, asks the candidates where they stand on holding prisoners at Guantanamo Bay.
“How can I, Mr. Giuliani, support a candidate who has committed adultery just as President Clinton did and not be a hypocrite,” asks Mark from California. Ouch! No wonder Rudy isn’t gung-ho on the YouTube debate.
Do Republicans consider themselves “more patriotic Americans” than Democratic candidates? That’s what Vitus from Miami wants to know.
Waleeg from Philadelphia notes that Republicans did not participate in candidate forums sponsored by the NAACP and the National Urban League and asks: “How do you plan on bringing together a nation with 80 million black and hispanic citizens without engaging them?”
This is becoming a bad habit. We’ve been on Rush Limbaugh’s show again in the discussion over the YouTube CNN debate and various Republicans’ attempts to weasel out of it. In full:
RUSH: The controversy here over the Republicans not participating in the upcoming YouTube CNN debate has led to lots of discussion, as some people think the Republicans are going to have this backfire on them because you gotta go out there and you gotta face the people. If you’re afraid to face the people, meaning the average Americans who upload their questions via video on YouTube, then you’re acting cowardly and so forth. Note the Democrats, to this day are scared to death to go on Fox, you got Barack Obama and Hillary in a meaningless argument over which thug around the world they will talk to when, the fact is, neither of them has the guts to go on Fox News for a debate. But you don’t hear that portrayed in the Drive-By Media. Now the Republicans say, “You know what, the office of the presidency is a little bit higher, has a little bit more prejudice than subjecting ourselves to questions from idiots dressed up as snowmen and so forth.” Now they’re saying it’s going to backfire on them, and this was a discussion on CNN’s Reliable Sources on Sunday with Howard Kurtz. He’s talking with Jeff Jarvis, media critic. Kurtz says, “They were supposed to, or at least was tentatively scheduled, a Republican presidential debate with CNN YouTube format for September. Now a lot of the Republicans are expressing reservations, have scheduling problems. Do you think the Republicans are being aware of being questioned by people who submit their queries through YouTube?”
JARVIS: I think they’re revealing themselves to be a bunch of fraidy cats. The Republicans for some reason have not done as much on the interpret and YouTube as the Democrats have, though in Europe it’s conservatives who are ahead on YouTube, so it’s not a bias thing as Rush Limbaugh tried to insist this week. I think the Republicans were trying to find some way to weasel out of this, and they used scheduling excuses, bias excuses, dignity excuses, but I think it’s going to come around. I’m going to bet it’s going to happen, and because they can’t avoid talking to us.
RUSH: They are not trying to avoid talking to you. By the way, they’re going to try to reschedule this thing for December, is what I’m hearing. I never said the Republicans shouldn’t do it because of bias. We all know there’s bias in the Drive-By Media. We all know that CNN’s going to choose questions based on their agenda, based on what they get submitted to them. We know there’s going to be bias. I suggested that it would be a rotten thing to do because it’s demeaning to the office. It lowers the office to the level of the lowest common denominator of pop culture. This is being presented as some revolutionary new thing, and it’s not. It’s no different than having an audience in there that you stand around, you run around with a microphone, let ‘em ask questions and so forth, and you know how well that goes, and you know that they have never turned over, CNN nor any network has never turned over totally a debate to people in the audience. They occasionally go to people in the audience, like the ponytailed guy in Richmond, Virginia, back in 1992 who wanted all those candidates to explain to him how they were going to treat us like their children and so forth, it was gag me with a spoon time on that. If I were these professional journalists, I’d be a little upset that I’m being aced out of this. The Drive-By Media is in enough trouble as it is without their prestige being put on the line here by claiming that the debate will be better with these yahoos sitting out there with these cameras submitting their stuff via upload to YouTube.
A voter calls out Giulliani and Romney for trying to find excuses to duck the YouTube debate. He calls them a variation on what I called them: fraidycat. And — no surprise — he comes around to say the real reason they’re scared is because they don’t want to face Ron Paul. Ron Paul is everywhere.
The Channel 08 blog has the latest on the tango over the debate: It might be rescheduled.
The candidates are finally taking questions on YouTube and answering them directly. That’s the good news. The bad news is that they go after the softballs. All they’re really doing is going to look for the questions they wish they’d been asked.
Here’s Mike Gravel on Iraq:
And here’s Dennis Kucinich, again, on impeachment:
Kit Seeyle at the NY Times blogs that the GOP YouTube debate may be moved to a new date because Giuliani and Romney complain that they have fundraising conflicts. And, no doubt, because of the uproar their finking out was causing. And by the way, if it’s fundraising you care about, paying respect to the internet would pay back more than a hundred chicken dinners.
LATER: The Washington Post’s blogs now report that Romney might decide to participate.
I bet the YouTube debate will happen with most or all of the candidates. They tried to back out but that just didn’t work; it made them look like wimps. And now they’re on the record with their trepidation about the network, the format, the videos all so they can continue to blame someone else if they don’t come off well talking with the people.
Hey CNN/YouTube! What About My Question?
Rob Hyatt from Atlanta was disappointed that a snowman’s question was included in the debate but his wasn’t. Here’s Rob’s well-produced query about healthcare:
Drive Time
Just catching up (thanks to Kareem) with this series of ads from abrad2345. An obvious but sometimes humorous and well-performed caricature of a pissed-off white guy who, while driving around, spritzes about the Republican presidential candidates and the issues of the day. The end credits display the Giuliani campaign’s web address. Whoa! Somebody sure doesn’t like Rudy. This clip is called Rudy Giuliani - Because we can’t all be firefighters.
