Perception Politics

The blogosphere is abuzz with commentary on the CNN/YouTube debates last night. The folks over at Moderate Voice had this to say: But, clearly, the stage is now set — literally — for campaign debates to evolve beyond a TV model that has most of its roots in the Kennedy-Nixon debates of 1960. I’m not sure exactly how much changed last night with regard to:a) The fundamental format of the debatesb) The incredible focus on perception politics. The attention to tenor of conversation, the perception of strength and weakness, the notion of being a uniter or divider, or the buzz that happened over “gray hair comments” [which as an aside did soften the mood in a positive way] is very much with us in our media age, even with the wonders of Web 2.0. We live in an era of perception politics. Murray Edelman’s, Constructing the Political Spectacle is instructive in this regard. I think the main downside of a YouTube focus is it only heightens the focus on perception politics. I now can watch video of Obama talking about his opinion of Harry Potter on YouTube. I like that behind the curtains and beyond the spin doctors look into the personal lives of candidates and the notion that maybe this gives me insight into the character, but I really feel for the candidates in terms of the ways in which your actual platform seems like a third level concern. Don’t get me wrong, I still very much enjoy both the townhall and You Tube formats. I look forward to seeing the changes as this format goes further. Hopefully it will be adopted occassionally for state races as well.c) So now it seems we have 3 formats: standard, townhall, and YouTube meets standard. Anybody have any commentary on John Edward’s conversation and the way he used an online conversation after the debate to further his conversation with the debaters? Thoughts?