Compassion in Politics: Christian Social Justice, Non-Profits, and Life Theology

Blogging about Liveblogging…

I initially started the evening liveblogging on Twitter, but after hearing Baratunde suggest a move to Tech President, I thought I would check it out. You can find my take on the CNN/YouTube debates here.

Wow! Coverit Live was very cool. It was the real deal Holyfield. I think around 57 people in the chat room at a time with a total of around 120 over the evening. Techpresident with the help of Meebo/Coverit Live hosted a great chat (with about 5-15 second delay to ensure a PG-13 experience. I actually have no idea what the criteria was used and no censored comments.) All seemed generally pleased with the experience. It was not unlike my experience with Campfire. I will say I liked the campfire experience better, because it was more real time. However, given that Tech President had some small monicrum of party diversity–that added significantly to the exchange. The Tech President Meebo/CoveritLive setup didn’t even require a login. (although I don’t think that applies across the board–there is a registration to even check it out on the site.) So presidential debate + live chat…especially with folks that know politics….is pretty sweet.

If you are thinking of liveblogging an event–particuarly in a group–Coverit Live provides great conversation and interaction and even seems to provide more direct interaction than Twitter. (oh…and according to their website…Cover It is free of charge).

If I wanted the info for later, I could have just posted it into a Word Document or a rather large blog post (or series of posts). To me, that seems even more flexible than Twitter.

So what are your thoughts about the debate? You can check out mine and others’ takes on the YouTube/CNN Republican Debates here.

(thanks to Rubi Ji of Netcentric for photo of the virtual world of of Second Life above and Steve Garfield for the photo of Joshua Levy of Tech President)

Winners v. Losers
Winners-Huckabee was en fuego. McCain performed almost as well. Universally 99.9% of the commentary supported Huckabee as the leader.

The Murky and Muddy Middle-Thompson’s last ditch effort was lack luster and according to a CNN commentator “lost without his cue cards.” His commercial didn’t stand on his principles and policy choices, and instead looked like a rabid attack dog (playing bad soundbite games) next to more presidential candidates.

Losers-Rudy v. Romney seemed a bit like a cat fight as the shots were fired back and fourth. Ron Paul was lackluster and didn’t get enough coverage. Tancredo wasn’t exactly spectacular either.

Key National Issues Left Off the Debate Agenda:
From The Tech President chat:

Micah also sez: and i’m surprised that CNN didn’t include any questions on health care, jobs, the environment, the falling dollar, outsourcing, trade, or anywhere but Iraq.

Did the CNN Debates Honor the You Tube Community and Democracy:

According to the folks in the YouTube CNN Debate chat at Tech Republican only 1 in the top 40 most watched questions and only 2 of the community counts top questions were asked. I think CNN’s editorial hand played very heavily. If the community can come up with the questions and provide CNN with material, why isn’t it also qualified to. What is the point of it watching the questions before the debate, if CNN ultimately pulls 99.9% of the strings? Its like your parents taking you on a pre-Christmas stroll through the toy section for a selection process and not actually getting anything you picked for the holiday.

Quotes of the evening:
“They’re all trying to out-Tancredo Tancredo.” Tancredo

“I’m vested in a scenario of victory” Fred Thompson

Best Questions:
The Bible, torture, and inner city violence question questions. The gay general and the why don’t African American’s vote Republican were both on-point.

Worst Questions:
Hands down the question was the Grover Norquist question:

8:43 P.M. Wait. The tax question is from Grover Norquist, a prominent D.C.-based GOP operative. That totally undermines the whole concept of the YouTube debate. As if Grover doesn’t have enough access to the candidates. That’s pathetic, CNN and YouTube. Pathetic.

A close second would be the Mars question. Mars? The Red planet? With human population of zero? Really? Not the stuff about the Micah talked about?

Worst Commercial:
The coal revolution?!?!

Hot. And after West Virginia? Nice. Coal = progress. Quality…

Where Can You Find Other Great Coverage:
Tech President and Moderate Voice.

My Questions for You:
I want to hear from you. What did you think? What were your takeaways? Who won? What issues were most important to you? What issues will be most important in the election? Am I wrong about Ron Paul’s performance? Whose video was best v. worst? Make your voice heard. The ball is in your court….

Bonus Update:

Connie Rice from NPR on the Top 10 Secrets They Don’t Want You To Know about the Debates
. Also, apparently according to Mashable, the Democrats have launched a library of Republican Videos. Enjoy!

Feel free to check it my micro-blogging of the YouTube Republican debates on Twitter. Feel free to stop by, check it out, follow me, or add into the flow of political conversation on Twitter.

UPDATE: I’ve moved to the live discussion on Tech President.

Is that too much to ask???Yesterday I wrote two posts about the 11 upcoming MySpace/MTV 2008 presidential hopeful discussions with the candidates. In response, Zach Marks made some insightful comments about the series of dialogues and pointed me to his post here.Zachs post reminded me that “Candidates will be hit with questions submitted live via instant messaging, text messaging and e-mailing (would’ve been nice to see some Skype action and viewers will have the chance to rate candidates’ responses in realtime through a continuous live poll.

Part I: 24/7 Polls blow chunks. So I ask,
“Have we become a nation of focus groups and poll takers??? The risk I see from this hyper-attention placed on polls is we risk becoming a nation of herd followers based on a 250-1,000 person polling team. In this format even the candidates have to think how they can answer and time exactly so they can best manipulate the constant waxing and waning of the poll data during the discussion. Our attention to the polls creates a zero-sum tradeoff with our focus on the real issues and only plays at the level of surface rather than digging deeper. And our hyper-polling focus is what stands in the way of representatives making principled decisions about progressive public policy and social justice. Don’t get me wrong, listening is important and it may be that polling is the most effective way to listening to large numbers of constituents across a range of ongoing issues. I just think an over emphasis on polling data in the press tends to skew our notion of a) how we should individually decide and b) what it means to do the right thing. (1000 Frenchmen can be wrong–the theory of the wisdom of crowds not-with-standing) In fact, the crowd may be right, but group-think which is encouraged by hyper-poll watching internally crushes the beauty and effectiveness of the wisdom of crowds.

Instead of polling date why not a ticker with things like “Obama favorite artists are Bizmarkee and James Brown” “Gravel prefers Radiohead and Beck.” or “Ron Paul rocks out to BTO and Journey!” or 5-star rankings from D. Piddy, VJ Suchin Pac, and Snoop Dogg. Or even better, it would be more constructive to have folks text in random and bizarre messages which would be monitored or filtered about the candidates answers and reactions. Polling data seems so infinitely shallow that almost anything is better by comparison (including “I have a crush on Obama” Gravels video, alternatively, doesn’t make the cut)

Part II: The Supposed Failure of the You Tube Debates (as a personal response)
Zach I don’t think the YouTube debates fell as flat as you seem to portray. Like Gordon Mitchel said on Debatescoop the debates served as a platform where regular folks could talk in a fun and engaging way about politics around summer gatherings like bbqs.In contrast to your post, salient issues like warming, gay rights, and guns were all covered. Sure, we didn’t get into policy wonkery, but thats the nature of the format when you have such a slew of candidates. Certainly some of the questions we’re predicted by the campaign consultants. Also, I think the Hillary v. Obama distinction came out as a line in the sand, until Obama decided to get a little hawkish on Pakistan. Doh!!!!

The weekend is almost here….yeah!

<br/>So is there any over-emphasis on polling data? What do you think of the constant barrage of polls in the media and during these 11 conversations?

Soon MySpace will be useful for something other than annoying friend requests from Z-list bands & saaa-weeeeet pics like the above.  Acccording to Fox News, MySpace will be a vital platform for the MySpace/MTV Presidential candidate dialouges that aren’t debates.  Ok !!?!?  Or in MTV-speak “Jigga what!?!?”

Overall I think this is a good development from the perspective of democracy, an informed public, and an engaged youth vote. However, now instead of snowmen, the candidates can be asked by those OOHHHH so annoying virtual army of salacious MySpace spammers.  Sweet!!!!  Maybe the combined forces of Murdock, O’Reily, and Fox and Friends can keep them at bay.  (I think O’Reily has some experience in that area…although I haven’t read the court documents yet…)   Only question: which VJs will be chosen???  Former MTV VJ Adam Curry circa 80’s and 90’s?  Why not ask Kayne West to ask some insightful questions like “Why does George Bush hate black people so much?”  And also, what’s P. Diddys angle (or whatever he’s calling himself these days)?  And will each campaign now get a theme song? Hopefully all can steer clear of Celine Dion, unlike Hillary! (freaking genius I tell you…apparently Barbara Streisand, Yanni, and Bette Midler were unavailable) We know Justin can bring sexy back….but can MTV and MySpace bring it back sexy back to politics for Gen X and Gen Y??

 Questions and Concerns:

Fox claims it will be unfiltered, but how unfiltered is “unfiltered?”  What about fairness? Do you give the second tier candidates like the same face time as everybody else?

Seems like a back door way for Murdock to get some presidential connection to his network, which failed earlier.  Fox was to host debates in Nevada and became the subject of the Fox Attacks campaign by the netroots and  Robert Greenwald.  Alternatively, maybe we’ll have actual political discussions on MySpace and less LOL and :).

 What do you think about these new media shenanigans? Mr. Curry do you have an opinion?

Comments? Gut reactions? Concerns?   Favorite VJ to host?  Favorite musicians to make an appearance?  Campaign theme songs for the discussions/dialogues/non-debates for Hillary, Obama, Edward, Ron Paul, or another candidate? How about Fred Thompson’s song (who has yet to tip his Tennessee cowboy hat in the ring as of yet)??

The History of Political Protest and WhistleblowingIt used to be that social protest was limited to a) a letter to a prominent government official b) civil disobedience in the civic square c) crossing district lines d) voting. Now YouTube offers folks of all ages, genders, religions, and ethnicities a platform–and a visual and global one at that to express their feelings about inefficiency and injustice. Its like a digital bullhorn…..but in technicolor and sometime with a swanky soundtrack. The political future is increasingly open and digitalGovernment and corporations beware: the age of citizen journalism and broadcast is here and this is only the opening act. Citizen protesters and social changers, your bag of tools and tactics just got significantly larger, so take due advantage. Nashville parents proved this when they set up this blog with YouTube videos and got local media attention. You are in control or are you?Even without a change in policy this movement has been effective by bringing attention to the issue. Wonder if it will change the policy? If not, perhaps the next step is more distribution & activating those folks to take action. Thoughts? Have you heard of campaigns like this? Success or no? Want to know more about the new media revolution? (click here)