New political debates

New political debates
Yesterday, the nominees from the democratical party in U.S. participated in a different debate. The questions were done by … anyone. What you had to do was to publish a video on the popular you-tube and then be lucky enough in order to your question to be read. Almost three thousand people send a video and forty of them were actually used. Is this going to be the kind of debates of the 21st century?

Although many politicians nowadays give a vital importance on the Internet (see also the article Cyber Democracy in the 21st century), no such debate had taken place before. Even though politicians had been very well prepared it is actually hopeful that they have to listen to the common people and answer their questions. However here arises the question whether these questions were really randomly chosen and were the most representative.

This original debate of course presents plenty benefits, apart from the fact that nominees have to listen to the voters, which of fundamental importance. In addition, in this way politicians can understand in a direct way, what is most important for their voters. Many people believe that in this way there is a chance that the nominees may include in their programs something that they wouldn’t if this debate didn’t take place.

On the other hand, there are some who dispute how representative these questions were. Also, there are some people who hold that an objective and successful reporter can make more difficult questions to the nominees and in this way they make some mistakes.

To sum up, in my opinion this new debate is a very positive step provided that it is objective and the questions are random and representative, which is difficult to ensure…