Looking Ahead to the Poorly-Timed YouTube Debate

Tuesday, November 27, 2007

Tomorrow night is the next YouTube debate on CNN.

It's odd - the last debate for Republicans was back on October 21, back in Florida, a strikingly raucous and entertaining one. Since then we've had two Democratic debates, one with a seemingly decisive moment (Hillary on the driver's licenses). The Republicans have had a strangely lengthy intermission.

The Democrats timed their YouTube debate perfectly. Each party needed its first, introductory debate; but ten minutes into the second debate, it was clear we were going to get a lot of similar questions ("What would you do about Iraq?") and a lot of repetitive, monotonous answers. After a few months of the most dull and pointless disagreement-free "debates" in memory, the mid-July YouTube debate came along and threw out some refreshingly oddball questions. One of those queries triggered one of the few serious points of contention among the Democrats so far, between Obama and Hillary on whether to meet with dictators without conditions.

This is a supremely different moment for the Republicans. The Iowa caucus is just over a month away; the first absentee ballots for New Hampshire get mailed out December 10. Duncan Hunter and Tom Tancredo really shouldn't be on the stage. Every major candidate has something they need to accomplish tomorrow night.

Fred Thompson needs to get his groove back, and stop his slide. Romney has been knocked around like a pinata these past few weeks; he needs to demonstrate that he's the kind of guy who can take a pounding and bounce right back up. Rudy Giuliani's got to reassure folks that his victory won't lead to a social conservative revolt; similarly, Mike Huckabee's got to reassure folks his victory won't lead to a fiscal conservative revolt. John McCain seems to have been on a roll lately, but is it going to be enough to accomplish more than a nice finish in New Hampshire? And finally — I'll take "Sentences I Never Thought I Would Write" for 400, Alex — will Ron Paul start looking like a serious candidate, with a constituency in the GOP too vocal and large to ignore?

With everybody on stage needing to accomplish goals, I wonder how they'll respond to snowmen asking questions or the two lame wannabe-comedians with the Red State Update or "have you seen a UFO" or other oddball, seemingly time-wasting queries. The wacky unpredictability of YouTube was what the race needed during the midsummer blahs; right now, the GOP electorate is looking for the sharpest contrasts. Will the questions CNN selects provide that?

11/27 09:54 AM Share