The Candidate Mashup is Live: Slice-and-Dice the Debate, Create Your Own Video

HuffPost's first-ever online-only Candidate Mashup is now live on Yahoo! If you haven't checked it out yet, go ahead -- and see how it feels to be able to shape the debate.

This is Phase Two of the Mashup. For a little color on Phase One (the Charlie Rose interviews), click here or read John Dickerson's account on Slate.

You can also see how the event has been covered by the BBC, the New York Times, Agence France-Presse, and Reuters, among others.

Phase Three of the Mashup, which is also ready to go, makes all of the video available on Jumpcut, and allows you to remix it however you please and to embed your personalized mashups on other sites. Maybe you'll come up with the next online sensation (if a guy weeping over Britney can get 4 million hits in 3 days, who knows what your candidate mashup can do). Send us your mashups at [e-mail] and we'll feature the best ones.

As for what the candidates had to say, there were definitely some standout moments.

Hillary Clinton made news when she took a hard swipe at Barack Obama and John Edwards as "inauthentic" for slamming her for taking money from lobbyists while they accept money from the people who employ those same lobbyists.

She also touted Monday's release of her new plan to offer universal health coverage: "I hope the headline will read, 'Hillary is back and we're going to get it done this time."

The money moment from Obama -- both figuratively and literally -- was his handling of Rose's question about the role money plays in today's politics, particularly in light of the Hsu scandal. "You know, Charlie," he said, "money is the original sin of politics. And when you're running for president you're going to do some sinning when it comes to raising money, because otherwise you can't compete." But he also stressed that despite his record-breaking fundraising, he wouldn't be beholden to campaign donors. The question he said, is "Are you able to unify the country and overcome the special interest-driven agendas in order to actually get something done. And I think that is where I've got the biggest advantage."

Edwards' highlight was his two-fisted attack on drug companies and insurance companies: "I know some of those who are running on my side, the Democratic side, argue that you should give them at seat at the table, you should negotiate with them, compromise with them... The reason we don't have universal health care is these people have absolutely no intention of giving away their power voluntarily."

Many of the most compelling moments of the mashup came as a result of the "wild card" questions asked by Bill Maher.

He asked Obama: "If the Ten Commandments constitute our greatest source of morality, why is it there no Commandment saying do not rape, do not torture or do not commit incest - yet there are commandments against swearing, working on Sunday and making statues to other gods?" Obama replied, "I think [Maher] rightly points out some of the inconsistencies and hypocrisy of people who mix religion and politics sometimes," which then led to a firm rebuke of the religious right.

He asked Chris Dodd: "Can you give me a good reason why, in a free and fair society, marijuana should be illegal?" To his credit, Dodd addressed the hot button issue head on, saying that America's war on drugs was "cluttering up our prisons" and that he would "decriminalize, or certainly advocate as president, the decriminalization of statutes that would incarcerate or severely penalize people for using marijuana."

He asked Joe Biden whether a terrorist attack, air polluted by coal, or high fructose corn syrup would most likely contribute to the death of an average American. The Senator's deadly ranking: polluted air, corn syrup, terrorist attack. "That does not in any way diminish the fact that a terrorist threat is real," he explained. "It is not an existential threat to bring down the country, but does have the capacity still to kill thousands of people. But hundreds of thousands of people have their lives shortened because of coal fired plants and because of corn syrup."

And he asked Hillary: "Sen. Clinton, all the senators here, except Sen. Obama, voted for the Iraq resolution in 2002, saying that their decision was based on intelligence that they believed to be accurate at the time. In other words, George Bush fooled you. Why should Americans vote for someone who can be fooled by George Bush?"

To see how Hillary handled that one -- and to slice-and-dice the rest of the candidates' answers -- go to Yahoo!'s mashup page. Then go to Jumpcut and have at the video -- re-cutting, re-mixing, and re-imagining it as you see fit.

We can't wait to see what you come up with.

For some behind-the-scenes photos from the Mashup, click here.

Comments

[frank67]

The corporate media has one aim: "Republicans good, Democrats bad."
Repeat it a thousand times and sheeple believe.

[ysbaddaden]

Isn't Hillary a member of the Senate Armed Forces Committee? Not only does she have the right, but she also has the obligation to question General Petraeus closely.

Past Democratic presidents have won world wars in less time that this current fiasco.

[Stevelagain]

She has the obligation to question him closely and I would also say she has the obligation to treat him with deep respect instead of smearing and lying about him.....that's an obligation she failed.

[RogueCowboy]

When did counting the number of neighborhoods that are OCCUPIED by US Troops become the measure of Success in a "WAR"?
I volunteered for the US Army in 1962, served 2 years active duty and took an HONORABLE Discharge in 1967 at the Rank of Captain after serving in the Active Guard. Back in the day we measured winning by killing more of the ENEMY than they killed our Troops.
Victory was when the Enemy laid down their arms and surrendered.
No one of you can even state the SIZE of the Enemy nor how many we have killed with this "SUCCESSFUL SURGE". What is your definition of WINNING? What is your definition of Victory? What is your definition of SUCCESS?

[Stevelagain]

Arianna,

I agree with you. Obama blew his bible question. Instead of attacking his "fellow Christians" he could have pointed out that the ten commandments forbids for men to lust after other women or to commit adultery. Mr Obama seems to have failed his bible test. He knew no more about the Bible than a man who proclaims he doesn't believe in it. And to attack fellow Christians is strictly a no no in the "body of Christ.

The lure of political power sure does strange things to people, even left wing 'Christian' socialist democrats?

[StrategicThinker]

The question from Bill Maher to Hillary Clinton was weak.

[Stevelagain]

I'm surprised that Obama seems to be unaware of what the ten commandments are. If he did know the ten commandments then he would have had a perfect response to the ten commandments rape question.

Such as the ten commandments say not to "lust" after thy nighbors wife nor to covet her. In other words, God says a man should not focus on having sex with a women he is not married to and if a man controls his thoughts he then controls his actions and does not rape.

Someone please tell me how it is that a man who knows nothing about this can claim to be a standard for his "fellow Christians" whom he spends more time attacking then radical muslims.

[lastams]

I think we must consider that rather than Orwellian, in the sense of strict Government control of information, what the Internet and "information age" has brought us is an actual overabundance of information.
This administration, Rove, the RNC, has been able to tailor a view of the world totally at odds with reality.
They repeat the same toy phrases from outlet to outlet and promote the filtering out of actual facts by labeling genuine news biased.
How else can one explain a speech so devoid of reality as this weeks" dilusional Bush rant?

"In Iraq," he declared, "an ally of the United States is fighting for its survival." This sounded as if some well-established government were under attack from an outside force. In fact, a U.S.-installed regime is racked with divisiveness as a result of sectarian clashes within its own society, yet this Whitehouse continues to spin this yarn and 29 percent of the American people continue to buy it.

Six years after the 9/11 terror attacks on the U.S., 1 in 3 Americans believe that "Saddam Hussein was personally involved in the September 11th, 2001, terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon."
According to a new CBS/New York Times poll.

This administration has even gone so far as to link, or at least confuse, Al-Qaeda and Iran, which is sort of like confusing the Black Panthers with the Ku Klux Klan.

One would think that our so-called "liberal" media would be incredulous at the shear inaccuracies of the lies being spread ¦ and perhaps to some extent they are. What this administration has done is not so much silence the dissent as make it irrelevant. In the minds of a political base steeped in ignorance, huberistic, and biased to the point of blindness, there are sufficient outlets to smother the faithful in their dogma while filtering out the voices of fact and reason.

[HOORGANVISOR]

It is great to have the Internet to allow average people to have their views expressed for millions to sample. We must hold politicians responsible for what they say and do. We don't want to have a President like the first President Bush raise taxes because the Democrats force him to do it and then those same Democrats blame him for raising taxes. We also don't want to have a President who fails to deport 19 future hijackers in 1999 be allowed to be considered a great President despite the over 3000 murders he enabled to be committed on 9/11. We also need to question candidates like the Democrats who want a health care system they refuse to use to be forced upon the public. I wish you much success as long as it is not used for propaganda purposes. We already have too many lies out there that people want to believe.

[lastams]

Let's see now ... the Democrats FORCED Bush to Raise taxes, then Clinton enabled the 9-11 highjackers... now "THE DEMOCRATS" are forcing us to have healthcare ...

Wow! someone really is drinking the Koolaid!

[justice4juveniles]

http://www.cjcj.org/pubs/clinton/clinton.html
here is a little something folks should know before voting for another Clinton. Bill Clinton may have been called the "first black president", but it doesn't look like he did them any favors after he got their vote. It all seems a little disingenous to me since black folks are 12% of the population and are over 60% of the prison population. Hmmmmm, vote for me and I'll make sure you end up behind bars. I wonder if old Magic is aware of this?

[Shane]

I would like to see something organized called
"A Month of Mourning"
The mourning of what this country has done to Iraq.
A month filled with events and discussions
about the last four years concerning what has happened in Iraq and what has happened to us.
Beneath our frustated anger is a real sadness.
"A Month of Mourning"

[Drill]

The minute we choose to mock our Military Generals over our enemies is the minute we have lost the war. I condemn Moveon.org and laugh at Hillary who just lost the Presidency for following their lead.

[AnaFromTennessee]

And whom exactly is the enemy in Iraq? AQI (consisting of about 5% of the foreign fighters)? I strongly agree with MoveOn.org and think that they could have been stronger. I can only figure that you are a Guiliani supporter (and maybe you can explain to the folks here why it is that Rudy attacks Hillary for something that MoveOn said in their advertisement). Guess you think anyone that disagrees with bush is an antiAmerican ultra leftwing traitor?? You couldn't be more wrong!

[KimMiller]

I am amazed that energy policy and climate change were not considered important enough to be included in this debate. How can that be? Iraq is a terrible mistake. How much more can we work with that problem. Most of the options proposed on either side of the isle are only slightly different. All of the probable outcomes are bad. Energy policy is an area we can step back and get something right. The right energy policy gives us the chance not to have another Iraq. America, let"s think ahead for once. I came to the Yahoo Mashup excited to have a tool to quickly compare energy policies. I was very disappointed to find the issue not even discussed.

[Unitari]

Why haven't we had a woman run one of these debates yet?

It's still a sausage party both in the media and in politics, it seems to be worth it to have Hillary as the president just to change this. I can't tell you how much I'm sick of seeing boys argue.

[SadieYates]

I don't really understand the mash up concept.
I watched the one with Bill M asking Chris Dodd about legalizing marijuana. is that for real?

[janvoght]

I absolutely love this new forum, and applaud any attempt to innovate and create a fresh approach!!!
Tnx, and keep up the brilliant work, that we have learned to look forward from this blog.