I did a quick perusal of the presidential candidate's blogs today. I realized:
1) It is random supporters and campaign people that are doing the posting and some guy named "georgewbush.com" that posts for the Bush blog sometimes.
2) Bush's bloggers post as much about the campaign progress (e g where the campaign is campaigning, poll numbers) as they do about stuff that actually matters to the country.
3) Kerry's bloggers posts as much about Bush (e g bad fiscal responsibility by Bush, Bush's Medicare Bill Sucks) as they do about stuff that actually matters to the country.
4) Of course, this was a limited perusal. But, I could come up with more criticism. But since this post is about a POSSIBILITY, I'll stop.
Anyways, I had a point here. oh yeah: THIS IS LAME. The only thing they are using blogs for is to publish news. There is no interactivity. The candidates don't even actually write anything. They only link to people that agree with them. blah blah blah.
So, I am proposing A New Presidential Debate Platform: On the Web[log]
We all know that the televised debates are about as exciting as watching snails race and as staged as a sitcom. And we could blame that on any number of people/players: the tv stations/media companies, the candidates, the political parties, etc.
But, who cares. Right? We don't need the freaking tv. We can deliver words, sound and video through the web. So, maybe BUSH and KERRY should do a group weblog together (in the fashion of boing boing or many-to-many) and use it as a debate platform. They both would have the opportunity to address whatever issues they wanted by posting on new subjects. And they would both be forced to address each other mano y mano, like presidential debates and campaigns used to be.
Think about it. The newspapers used to facilitate elections back in the day. And newspapers were an awesome format because they printed things that mattered, then, and people read them. Radio & TV are bastard children of newspapers. They have so much promise (ie sound and video), but they've been bastardized by "the sound bite in a minute, gotta get the ads on the air" media company modus operandi.
The web doesn't have these constraints. The web is direct to your living room office computer. No middle man media company to foul things up. No time constraints and no arbitrary 'this guy gets the last word', unless it is earned!
So, get on it people. Demand this from our so-called "PRESIDENTIAL" candidates:
TALK TO US ONLINE.
TALK TO EACH OTHER ONLINE.
MOVE THE DEBATE TO THE WEB[LOG]
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