The Internet Debate

History will record that tonight’s debate among eight Democratic candidate prospects for 2008 was held on MSNBC.

It wasn’t.

This scene, for instance, from the cover of MSNBC.Com tonight, did not really take place as portrayed. There was no time where Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton went mano a womano, where any real contrast was drawn between them, or where they were permitted to dominate the stage. It didn’t happen, and in an 8-way "debate" it couldn’t.

The event was televised by MSNBC, but it will go down as the first true Internet debate.

For the first time, the "spin" of self-righteous jerks like Chris Matthews won’t determine the winners and losers. That will happen online. Clips from this debate are going to appear online, and activists will be debating the debate, parsing the debate, and spinning the debate online for weeks.

It’s from that we’ll learn who won and who lost. Not from TV. From the Internet. That’s because so much of the Democratic base today takes its cues from the online world, rather than from TV. Americans voted for Democrats last year despite the TV coverage, not because of it. We’re sick of the TV coverage, with its TV values and phony earnestness, which only includes the few "talking heads" from Washington who have told us what to think for a generation.

Their time is over, and so is their medium’s.

Personally I was more impressed than I probably should have been by the
"crazy uncle," Mike Gravel (right, since you probably won’t see much more of him), and "Dennis the Menace" Kucinich. This was
because neither had anything to lose, and so they let loose. Joe Biden
and Chris Dodd should have taken a cue from these two, but neither
managed to really stand out — except for Biden with his one word "yes"
when asked whether he could shut up.

Among the "top tier" candidates, Edwards and Richardson were both more
impressive than Clinton or Obama. Both of the latter tried hard not to
make any gaffes, and as a result said nothing memorable. Being careful,
in this case, meant sounding conservative, and this hurt both of them.
But they have so much money that they obviously felt this didn’t
matter.

As to Edwards and Richardson, I’d say Edwards tried to be the caring,
nurturing President while Richardson tried to be the direct, but
diplomatic President. Edwards was a bit like a recording artist we’ve
heard many times before, and trotted out some of his Solid Gold Hits
including "son of a millworker." Richardson tried very hard to appear
as a top tier candidate, although polls so far show he’s not really a
top-tier candidate.

Finally, a word about the format. I liked it. Gravel was given little
time to suck the oxygen from the room. There were "show of hands"
answers and "one sentence" answers sought. The time moved along well. I
learned a few things, although I can’t for the life of me remember
what most of them were.

Now, back to the point. It doesn’t matter what Chris Matthews thought about this, or Keith Olbermann, or any of tomorrow morning’s pundits, or me. What matters is what you thought of it. What matters is what you do about it. Will you decide to learn more about Kucinich and Gravel? Will you commit to Edwards or Richardson? Will you engage, write your own blog posts, respond on someone else’s post, argue at DailyKos or MyDD? Are you, instead, going to become a more committed Republican, as a result of this debate?

Up to you.