Tonight was a historic night as for the first time in presidential politics, people from across the country were able to submit video questions to the democratic presidential candidates at the CNN-YouTube Democratic Presidential Debates. For someone like myself who has been very interested in politics for years now and have watched many presidential debates, I believe this was by far the most enjoyable and informative debate I have ever seen.

The questions people submitted were all poignant, very well said and most importantly, REAL! They were real questions from real people with real issues and concerns. I felt that Anderson Cooper did a good job moderating and keeping the candidates on point as well as keeping the discussions moving. Finally, I think that the style of the debate forced the candidates to speak truthfully and openly. They had to be on their toes and at least I saw who was able to think and react quickly on their feet and who could not.

I think this is yet another example of how technology is giving each and every one of us an opportunity to let our voices be heard if we want them to. I cannot see how in the future, debates could go back to the three boring reporters sitting at a table and reading questions from 3×5 cards.

What did you think? If you did not have a chance to see it, it is being replayed on YouTube. Let me know your thoughts on the debate.

Technorati Tags: presidential politics, CNN, YouTube, Anderson Cooper

Tonight kicks off a first for presidential politics as YouTube and CNN will be hosting a democratic presidential debate live from South Carolina where YouTube users were able to record and submit questions to candidates and they will answer them tonight. I think this is a great step forward if they do it right and I do think that is a big IF. I will be very interested to see if they actually chose some tough and controversial questions or if they will take the easy way out and just use softball questions for the candidates.

In my opinion, what would of been even better was that YouTube allowed their community to vote on which questions they liked the best and the questions which received the most votes were automatically used, but let’s hope this is one small step forward with many to come.

I know I will be watching tonight and we can definitely discuss what we thought of it tomorrow. The debate begins tonight at 7 pm on CNN and is scheduled to run two hours.

Technorati Tags: CNN, presidential debate, YouTube

Click here to view the embedded video.

Let’s spitball a little bit here. I think we can all agree no matter what your political ideology is everyone would like the Iraq war to end so we can get our American soldiers home. I have an idea on how to do this. Let’s get Ann Coulter and drop her into Iraq. After listening to this woman for a very short period of time, I think the insurgents would surrender immediately than continue listening to this loud mouth evil wind bag.

After continuing to listen to what comes out of Ann Coulter’s mouth, I now understand why lions sometimes eat their young.

Disclosure: I am not shilling nor am I fan of John Edwards. I am a fan of intelligent caring people having meaningful conversations that hopefully will make this country and the world a better place to be. Ann Coulter represents everything I abhor in politics and in people.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Technorati Tags: Iraq war, Ann Coulter

Click here to view the embedded video.

I think everyone including the presidential candidates have realized that the web is for real and no-one is going to get elected without a significant presence in cyberspace. Recently a gentleman posted a question to all of the presidential hopefuls on YouTube and he has just gotten the very first ever video response by a candidate. Joe Biden has welcomed a new platform available for the American public to truly question people vying for their votes. Biden definitely a dark horse in the race has been embracing the web in a number of different ways. This includes launching a website called Head to Head 08 where users can compare speeches of himself versus his democratic opponents.

I love this and I give huge points for Biden for willing to be the first one to take a leap of faith. I guarantee this will not be the last of these. The video is below if you would like to view.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Technorati Tags: presidential candidates, YouTube, Joe Biden

I am a big proponent of free speech. I remind myself of this every time someone stands up and says something that causes my blood to boil. One person who has made a career of this is Ann Coulter. Now before everyone starts reaching for their soap boxes, let me state a couple of disclaimers. I am a bleeding heart liberal, pro-choice and pro-marriage (for hetero or homosexual couples). This pretty much translates into that I have been in HELL for the last 8 years. But my problem with Ann Coulter is not that she is a right wing republican or that we have differing views and opinions. In a democracy, you must have differing views that is what made this country what it is today.

My issue with Ann Coulter is she has made a career of just throwing these flame comments with absolutely nothing to back it up other than for her own self interests. As most of you know, she recently referred to John Edwards as a “faggot” in a recent speech she was making to the American Association of Klansman or was it to the United Tight Ass Association, I can’t remember. Anyhow, this woman seems to think that she can say anything she wants, but not be held accountable for her words.

Well after this most recent comment, some bloggers have taken a different tact to get this woman’s attention and that is through her wallet. A number of bloggers have started complaining to companies who were advertising on her web site. I am sorry, I will not put a link to her site here. You want to check it out, go google her. So far Verizon, Sallie Mae and NetBank have pulled all advertising from her site since her reference to John Edwards. It is a drop in the bucket compared to the kind of money she makes, but it will be interesting to see if any Republican candidates will associate with her after this latest comment.

Technorati Tags: free speech, Ann Coulter, John Edwards

After much talk, it was announced today that XM and Sirius satellite radio providers will combine forces and merge. Neither company was profitable yet, but according to this article:

“The new company, whose new name has yet to be announced, would have total assets worth about $13 billion and a shared debt of $1.6 billion. Combining XM’s 7.6 million subscribers with Sirius’ 6 million, the new company could have a total subscription base of well over 16 million by the end of 2007, if previous projections are accurate. “

The article also discusses the regulatory hurdles they are going to have to overcome from the government. I am no legal scholar by any means, but it sure seems like by these two companies merging they would have a monopoly on satellite radio.

“The companies’ plan still faces significant regulatory “hurdles,” according to FCC chairman Kevin Martin, who released a statement on Monday noting that “the companies would need to demonstrate that consumers would clearly be better off with both more choice and affordable prices.”

Meanwhile, the National Association of Broadcasters, representing terrestrial radio stations that compete with satellite, issued a scathing comment which read in part: “NAB would be shocked if federal regulators permitted a merger of XM and Sirius… When the FCC authorized satellite radio, it specifically found that the public would be served best by two competitive nationwide systems. Now, with their stock prices at rock bottom and their business model in disarray because of profligate spending practices, they seek a government bail-out to avoid competing in the marketplace.”

The NAB are just pissy because they know terrestrial radio is going away like the Dodo bird.

Eh, who cares about a monopoly… Give a couple million to Bush’s presidential library and it’s done, no problem.

Technorati Tags: XM, Sirius, merge, FCC, Kevin Martin, National Association of Broadcasters

I had a little bit of a deja vu moment earlier. I was having a political discussion with a friend over IM today and we were talking about possible presidential candidates for the 2008 election. My friend who is also “in the industry” talked about how many of the presidential hopefuls are really grabbing onto “engagement marketing” techniques like MySpace, YouTube and their web sites. I responded to him that yes, the candidates are using some of these technologies, but they are far from even coming close to engaging anyone.

Following my discussion, I was going to post an article on this when my Google Reader popped up with a post from Robert Scoble whose thoughts are very much in line with my own. Bottom line is that these candidates can use all the new and cool widgets out there, but the only way to truly engage with their constituents is by opening a two-way conversation.

Even though Barak Obama launched his exploratory committee though YouTube and John Edwards has a MySpace page, no-one has yet engaged with the people on these social sites not to mention the blogosphere. Politics and business have a lot in common here. It seems that neither understand or want to actually listen to what people have to say.

The first candidate to actually engage in a two-way conversation online the right way will see attention that all the media dollars in the world could not buy. Though I question whether that will happen or not.

Here is my Sunday question of the day. If you were running for president and truly wanted to engage people online, how would you do it? What would be your tactics? Where would you start?  I am going to put some ideas together as well and post my thoughts this week.

Technorati Tags: presidential candidates, engagement marketing, MySpace, YouTube, Robert Scoble