GOP Contenders Face YouTube Debate

AP:

Republican presidential candidates faced a crowd of unusual debate questioners Wednesday night -- everyday people who sent in video clips.

CNN and YouTube sponsored the debate, the Republicans' eighth major confrontation of the 2008 campaign

People from across the country submitted more than 3,500 videos posing questions; about 40 were to be broadcast in the unusual gathering six weeks before voting begins.

Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani leads in national polls but trails former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney in early-voting Iowa and New Hampshire. Romney faces challenges from former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee in Iowa, and from Giuliani and Arizona Sen. John McCain in New Hampshire. Former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson, Texas Rep. Ron Paul and other lesser-knowns also are participating in the debate.

Read the whole story: AP

Comments

[normathumb]

If you can't believe one party member talking about another party member, who can you believe? C'mon now, they're all right, overly ambitious jerks I wouldn't let babysit. The irony is this is all over a straw man anyway. Lou Dobbs and a few other tinfoil hatted demigogues have got the crackpot coalition in a froth over something that really is a symptom, not the disease. We need to stop looking at it from the wrong end. If we paid a fair price for the natural resources we extract from other nations, we wouldn't have so many people leaving their homes and families, risking their lives and freedoms, to subject themselves to the viscious predatory exploiters in our country eager to take advantage of their status in order to maximise their profits by paying substandard wages, avoid paying taxes and social security and providing absolutely no benefits. There are a lot of business people that tout letting market forces prevail until it comes to providing a living wage here. They can't get Americans to labor at the same wages they can get folks with no legal rights to work for. As long as illegal employers see their fines as only one more cost of doing business nothing will change. Pay what prevailing market forces demand and start jailing business folks who don't. When we start sending illegal employers to jail, then we will see change. And we need to go at the top, not at some 35,000 a year clerk carrying out an unwritten mandate. If the head of Acme Meatpacking thought they might go to jail, they would make it perfectly clear all the way down the line what the policy should be.

[realitytrumpsbull]

I watched the debate, and I heard the guy go
on and on and on about the gays in the military
thing.
I served, and I served with a closeted soldier,
and he seemed to more or less be able to
do what he was supposed to, it was no big
deal to me. Comma. I can understand how to
some people, it WOULD be a big deal. I can
also understand how SOME people in our
services might still play with Legos(ref. CatIV
etc).
My experience was, the military isn't 'all
that', and gay, straight or otherwise, when
you sign that paper they basically all but
own you, I guess though that if you have
kids then they can own your family too?
Whatever it works out to, I'm glad to be
quit of it.

Anyway, on to other points, there sure seemed
to be a lot of bible-thumpism on display,
as well as half-answers, the back-and-forth
between Romney and Giuliani illustrated pretty
clearly that rich government dudes can't give
you a straight answer on policy. Props for
being crafty, I guess, but craftiness by
itself isn't good enough to really solve the
problem. And, that's the problem. These
guys all act like fronts for businesses rather
than as city administrators or state government.
Illegal immigration's pretty straightforward,
as issues go, but these guys aren't straightforward. Hence the term 'crook'. As in
'forget it, buddy, you're not getting elected'.

[Wrong2bRight]

What the GOP doesn't understand is that the basic right of minorities should come before the basic rights of the majority, because the majority get whatever they want.

[Ramirez]

Good debate. In the last Democratic debate, CNN was criticised for fielding all "undecided voter" questions from Democratic Party activists. So in order to remain fair and balanced, in this Republican debate CNN selected Democratic Party activists to ask the questions as well.

[zizyphus]

As long as as Florida, Ohio and other key states elections are run by Republicans, using paperless electronic voting machines made by Republicans with proprietary software, the chance of an honest election taking place is zero.

This spectacle- these blazing circuses of light designed to dazzle us into thinking we are part of the political process, are just marking time until the machines can do their work.

[Pdubya]

- MSM, CFR shill continues to marginalize only anti-war candidate

- loser jumps in polls after CFR visit, gets softballs at debate

- expense report trumps connection to terrorists and spanish NAU company

- MSM breaks own stated timing rules

- Straw Poll stacked by top-down campaign

- Fellow plutocrat from other party plants question to obvious defector of individual rights

next story:

rudy
hillary
rudy
hillary
rudy
hillary
rudy
hillary

[waiguoren]

Just heard a caller to a radio talk show (B.O.'s for those scoring at home )complain about planted questioners in last night's tribute to informed electorates everywhere.

He opined that CNN was irresponsible for not informing the CUSTOMERS watching at home of this travesty.

Does not that say it all??

[beerguy]

CNN has democratic plants asking questions and the Dems won't debate on Fox. Which candidates have more guts?

[BufoAmericanus]

This is like sitting down at a table set with wax food, which smells bad.

It may look nice, but the idea that the people who invited you expect you to eat it and be satisfied gets more unpalatable as we draw closer to dinner time.

Both Parties looked almost as "real" and "Warm" as the snowman.

[ashabot]

I am so sick of seeing the crook Rudy with his goddamn finger in the air pontificating to the camera.

[mrcontinental]

The carnage was FANTASTIC! No one slings mud like the GOP.

[3fingerbrown]

Christ, the lineup in that group photo is gruesome. Looks like a Dick Tracy villains reunion.

[ashabot]

Shuckabee didn't answer the question "would Jesus execute people". He gave a bullshit dumbass reply and the idiot sheeple cheered him. 'merikans make me sick.

[Nofoolhere]

What a travesty of a search for truth. What a puppet show. There was more than 45 minutes devoted to religious issues, abortion, gays and lesbians, devotion to Biblical Scripture, etc. But not one minute to the death grip of the corporate stranglehold that is the ruination of our nation and its Constitution, not one minute devoted to the devastating oil crisis that is raping the pocket books and lives of 100 million of our citizenry. Not one question about correcting the ethical impoverishment of the current Republican power structure. Not one question about election reform to correct the defective process that has installed the current abomination in Washington.

Did you notice the capacity of this group to respect the simple rules of debate? They did not. They used their 30 seconds and then proceed to shamelessly filibuster until they literally had to be shouted down by Anderson Cooper to permit the next question. A vote for any one of these lackeys to the power and greed mongers who own and operate our nation is a vote for death.

[waiguoren]

We have to stop Hitler! Read the Bible! No taxes for the churches and the rich !
We just want to hunt and shop! Health care is for commies! We just want to free the world so they can all go hunting with Jesus like us!
Just tell me what you want me to say!

Pathetic beyond all reason....­.