Public Voice Adds Edge to Debate

PUBLIC VOICE ADDS EDGE TO DEBATE
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Dan Balz and Anne E. Kornblut]
Democratic presidential candidates shared the spotlight Monday night with ordinary citizens from around the country in a two-hour debate that featured sharp and sometimes witty video questions and often equally sharp exchanges among the candidates on issues ranging from Iraq and health care to whether any of them can fix a broken political system. The debate, co-sponsored by CNN and YouTube, underscored the arrival of the Internet as a force in politics. The citizen-interrogators generated the most diverse set of questions in any of the presidential debates to date and challenged the candidates to break out of the rhetoric of their campaign speeches and to address sometimes uncomfortable issues, such as race, gender, religion and their own vulnerabilities.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/23/AR200707...
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[Commentay] In the end, the CNN/YouTube presidential debate amounts to little more than an interesting sort of town hall.
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-et-ontv24jul24,1,39...