Presidential Geek Survey Diary – Day 21

Tonight the Democratic presidential candidates will participate in a new kind of television debate: they will answer questions submitted by the American public via YouTube instead of playing the “raise your hand” game at the demand of Wolf Blitzer. I’m excited about this because the American media has no credibility anymore and can’t be trusted to ask questions that need asking.

It would be interesting to see Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and John Edwards and the gang respond to what is really on America’s mind. Some of the questions submitted to YouTube include:

• “If elected president, what will you do to limit the power of your own office?”
• “How will your political ideologies restore the image Muslim population in America?”
• “Would you support normalization of relations with Cuba, a country which demonstrates no threat to us?”
• “Would you agree that the belief that democracy is the right way to run a country doesn’t preclude other sovereign nations from making different choices?”
• “How important is securing life of earth to live independently on a different moon or planet?”
• “Since terrorists often use drug money to finance their operations, why not regulate and tax marijuana as method of dealing with both issues?”

Unfortunately, CNN is keeping control over which questions make it to the candidates instead of letting the public vote on which questions they want answered, which significantly reduces the chances of the candidates answering anything meaningfully. But, it is a start, and it gives me some hope that they might actually respond to the Geek Survey.

Score
Americans Connecting with Candidates, Albeit Under the Iron Thumb of CNN: 1 Geeks: 0