Zoo Decide 2008
CNN and YouTube are asking politically interested viewers and users to submit videos that pose questions for the 2008 candidates. CNN will broadcast selected questions in its upcoming debates hosted by Anderson Cooper.
And if some of the questions make it on the air, the debates will have an offbeat quality missing from the staid affairs televised so far.
“Steven,” currently residing in Spain, wants to know whether “within the last five years,” the candidates have “donated blood and why they did it.”
“KidKel69” asks, “What is your plan to keep the drugs off the streets and our kids at home?” Oddly enough, the anti-drug crusader KidKel69 — who describes herself as “YouTube’s one-and-only rock chick” — has a picture of The Doors’ Jim Morrison (who dabbled in drugs himself) hanging on her wall.
Kermit the Frog makes a guest-star appearance in a video, asking candidates how technology will influence “people … and frogs’ political views?”
“How would you deal with illegal immigration?” inquired “Bjorn Svenson,” a self-proclaimed Viking wearing a beard and helmet. A stuffed animal named “The Duck” wants some answers about the war in Iraq.
The makers of the videos also created queries aimed specifically at the Democrats, whose next debate airs on July 23 from South Carolina. Two men clad in denim overalls ask the Democratic candidates whether the intense media focus on Al Gore “hurts their feelings.”
Sen. Hillary Clinton may have a chance to answer a personal question from “TheJ2008,” who inquires, “[I]f elected, who will run the government; you or your husband, Bill?”
Plenty of other queries weren’t suitable for publication in a family newspaper.
