A little report on the upcoming debate tonight from USAToday:

When eight Republican presidential candidates meet Wednesday to answer questions coming from citizen videos, the audience will include political activists, local VIPS and Ray Keller, a Nebraska teacher.

Keller, 36, got his coveted ticket to the St. Petersburg, Fla. event because executives of YouTube, co-sponsor with CNN of the debate, see him as an exemplar of what they hoped to achieve with the forum’s innovative citizen-driven format.

According to Steve Grove, head of news and politics at YouTube, Keller is among scores of teachers who have encouraged students to submit questions to the candidates via the online video uploading service. The student questioners run the gamut “all the way from middle school to graduate school,” Grove said. One entry is from a class of Harvard University medical students.

The student questions helped fuel a big surge of interest in the debate, which drew nearly 5,000 video questions by Sunday’s deadline, CNN spokeswoman Edie Emery said. That’s up from approximately 3,000 submissions for the Democratic debate in July.

You can check out the submitted questions here and I’m sure CNN will have a live webcast up of the event as well.

Update:

Here’s a couple video previews:

Video: CNN/YouTube Debate Preview

Here’s another story from the WaPo:

Among the thousands of videos uploaded on YouTube for tomorrow’s GOP debate in St. Petersburg, Fla., a question lasting no more than three seconds may prove to be one of the toughest: “What does the word ‘Republican’ mean to you?”

Tomorrow night, after months of delay caused at least in part by candidates’ concerns about the format, the Republican contenders will face their version of the CNN/YouTube debate. As with the first YouTube debate four months ago, when the Democratic candidates fielded questions from, among others, a talking snowman that asked about global warming, the GOP candidates aren’t entirely sure how to prepare.

Just what indeed does the term “Republican” mean to all of them, there seems to be very different interpretations. They could be preparing by sorting through some of the potential questions and determining the likely ones to be asked, these things are all posted ahead of time for anyone to see.

Update:

Here’s a live video feed from CNN:

Full coverage of the Republican CNN/YouTube debate

(No Ratings Yet)

 Loading ...