So now The New Era in American political debates is finally here.

Or IS IT?

Not only did the “new media” You Tube participate in last night’s Democratic presidential hopefuls’ debate, but some pundits said the questions from You Tubers were for the most part knowledgeable and to the point. Would some media types who may have felt debates were a plum for star journalists start feeling as seemingly resentful as some journalists do about anyone-can-publish weblogs these days? By some accounts, many of the You Tube questions were blunt and solid ones.

Of course, then there were the talking snowmen.

But since political debates usually feature snow jobs, what was new about that?

Some press reaction to the debate and You Tube’s role in it:

CNN:

Democratic presidential candidates faced questions directly from voters on Monday in the first CNN/YouTube debate.

The lights and cameras were focused on the eight candidates, but it was the personal, heartfelt and, at times, comical nature of the user questions that stole the spotlight.

Questions included one from a father who lost a son in Iraq and wondered if he would lose another, a gay couple asking why they shouldn’t be allowed to marry and a woman stricken with breast cancer who asked if her chance of survival would be better if she had health insurance.

Most observers agreed that none of the candidates debating at the Citadel in Charleston, South Carolina, particularly out shined their rivals, doing nothing to challenge Sen. Hillary Clinton’s position as the Democratic race’s front-runner.

The videos came in all forms — people facing the camera straight-on, people in makeup, people with flashcards. And a talking snowman.

But Jeff Jarvis, writing on The Washington Post’s website expressed severe disappointment:

I am sorely disappointed.

CNN selected too many obvious, dutiful, silly questions.

Anderson Cooper didn’t pace the debate; he tried to trip the runners.

The videos were too tiny to be given justice.

The candidates’ videos were just commercials.

There were far too few issues.

There were too many candidates.

The candidates gave us the same answers they always give.

I have no doubt — no doubt — that we, the people, would have done a better job picking the questions than CNN did.

I have no doubt that we would have heard far more substance without CNN and TV cameras in this. This should have been a debate held online….

The Washington Post’s Tom Shales:

It was hardly the dawn of a new age in democracy — although it was hyped as at least that and more — but last night’s Democratic debate staged jointly by CNN and YouTube, the participatory video Web site, at least proved itself a novelty, especially considering how excessive the number of premature debates has been. As the media involved evolve, the program may be looked back upon as a brave beginning, if not a milestone.

…Cooper was obsessed with the candidates’ keeping answers brief, frequently interrupting them or cutting them off. This impulse, supposedly designed to curb long-windedness, leads to “debates” that are just collections of quotes and sound bites, like political commercials, and is precisely the kind of thing that has helped trivialize issues and discourage voter interest.

Anyone willing to sit down and watch a bunch of Democratic candidates talk about an election that is still more than a year away probably won’t care if the candidates give long answers. Sometimes Cooper demanded only a “yes” or a “no,” suggesting that our political discourse ought to be even more simplistic than it is.

But the major flaw looming over the two-hour telecast was that it wasn’t a very good telecast. CNN put the videos up in a relatively tiny window within a giant onstage screen and, surprisingly, didn’t give home viewers a better look at them than the candidates or the audience in the hall (at The Citadel, in South Carolina). The videos were so tiny within the TV frame that some could hardly be seen on a 70-inch TV screen; one can only imagine what visual gibberish they became on a 14- or even 21-inch set.

Australia’s news.com.au notes that although the You Tube questions may have been different, the candidates didn’t let them deter them from regurgitating their carefully prepared talking points:

YouTube postings for the debate ranged from the serious to the zany, on subjects as diverse as the Darfur crisis, healthcare costs in the United States, Iraq and China’s rising economic might.

In one posting Monday, a woman from Boston showed herself undergoing treatment for a rare form of cancer and asked the candidates if they planned to pour more federal funds into research on the killer disease…..

Another contributor, on vacation in Berlin, posed the question: “If you are elected president, will you still use YouTube?”

The mother of a soldier about to be deployed to Iraq asked: “How many more soldiers must die while these political games go on in our government?”

In a more lighthearted contribution, Sam Witherbee from New Hampshire attempted to surf a snowboard down a patch of grass and asked what candidates would do about global warming, tipped to cut snowfall in his state.

The Houston Chronicle:

The two-hour debate featured dozens of other questions posted via video on YouTube, from people across the country. They were shown on a large screen.

It was billed as an innovative opportunity for regular folks to interact with the candidates. CNN and YouTube are asking people to submit videos of their questions for the Republican candidate debate scheduled for Sept. 17.

A small group, led by CNN Senior Vice President David Bohrman and CNN Political Director Sam Feist screened and chose the questions for the democratic candidate debate, according to the cable network.

The questions are more personalized than those journalists would ask, Feist said in a newsclip on CNN.com. Candidates may be challenged by questions outside of their “comfort zones,” Bohrman said in the same piece.

“These are questions that we, the journalist, we the mainstream media, would never think to ask in the presidential debate,” Bohrman said….

The Guardian:

In the fourth of the Democratic debates, the tired format of journalists putting the questions to the eight candidates was finally dispensed with. YouTube provided 50 questions from more than 2,000 videos sent in, ranging from a cancer survivor to the father of a soldier killed in Iraq and a man cradling his “baby”, a gun.

Americans from all round the country and abroad, including a refugee camp in Darfur, provided different voices, accents and a refreshing directness. One asked Barack Obama if he was “authentically black” and Hillary Clinton if she was feminine enough.

They asked about issues that included reparations for African-Americans for slavery, gay rights, Hurricane Katrina, Iraq and health care. However, despite the technological advance in the format, there were times when it was just as shallow as previous outings.

But overall, the success of the format last night makes it almost certain that a similar model will be adopted next year in the three presidential debates running up to the November election. Most of the questions were serious but were interspersed the irreverence and anarchy associated with YouTube. One questioner, appearing on the video as a snowman, asked about climate change, another sang his question.

The New York Times:

The Democratic presidential debate last night was unlike any that had come before: two hours of questions conveyed on homemade videos from Americans who were by turns tough talking and highly emotional, mixing pathos and bathos with the simply offbeat.

….Yet while there was a new format for the debate, which was sponsored by CNN and the video-sharing Web site YouTube, the change went only so far: Candidates frequently lapsed into their talking points, and there was little actual debate among them.

Is there a common thread in these reactions to The Great You Tube Intervention Of 2007? A few conclusions:

(1) In this debate the novelty of You Tube questions could not help but overshadow and upstate the content of the Democrats’ presentation. The word “presentation” is more accurate than “debate” these days, because much of what Republicans and Democrats tout as “debate” really consists of talking points that candidates do cartwheels to recite, regardless of the actual question. But that is NOT new: talking points in debates go back some 40 years.

(2) Perhaps one day this debate will be seen as akin to the 1982 Disney movie “Tron,” a pioneering film that used computer imagery. It was not a smash when it came out — partly because its “look” and technology overshadowed the actual film content. Perhaps years (or months) from now You Tube questions or an online debate as Jarvis pines for will be the norm and no one will be concentrating on the You Tube or the online debate delivery system. But last night, the medium wasn’t necessarily the message but it became the cute little kid on stage that the audience can’t resist (even if it was a snowman).

(3) As Jarvis notes, since CNN still ran the debate, with You Tube participating, it was a typical broadcast debate with a framework and tone as predictable as tomorrow’s edition of your favorite soap opera.

(4) But, clearly, the stage is now set — literally — for campaign debates to evolve beyond a TV model that has most of its roots in the Kennedy-Nixon debates of 1960.

Now if they can just do something about eliminating those talking points….

HERE ARE SOME OTHER VIEWS ON ENTERING THE YOU TUBE DEBATE ERA:

–Andrew Sullivan called the concept a success:

If you’re sick of people like me on television, or worse, then the direct questions from regular voters and non-voters must have been a breath of extremely fresh air (there’s another asthmatic metaphor). I was fearing it would be lame. It wasn’t. Anderson was calm and appropriately tough (and, yes, I’m a friend but I’d say if he sucked as well). His affect was particularly well-suited to the new YouTube format…. More, please.

–Compassion In Politics:

While the citizen participation, passion, and creativity was refreshingly innovative, over a third of the questions dealt primarily with personal questions rather than the future policy direction. I don’t go to the voting booth to determine whether a candidate sent their kids to or took an airplane to the debate, I vote on the marrow of the issues and the. Other issues are distant thirds, fourths, and fifths. After all, that’s their constitutional mandate. Or did I miss something in Government 101? Maybe, I just think these “Gotcha” questions are cheap shots that don’t really reflect the vision of compassion as expressed in policy choices.

This cutting edge use of user created content was a fun twist on an old concept –a political mashup if you will. This is one of the first times that a mainstream media outlet, like CNN, has been integrated traditional media (in this case debate coverage) with new media such as YouTube in such a dramatic and meaningful way. At the end of the day I lay the blame for the poor questions at the feet of poor decision making by CNN folks. They would have made these decisions irrespective of where the questions came from whether it be editors, audience, or you tube.

–Vodka Pundit had some questions himself. Go to HIS SITE and just scroll down to see them and his live blogging.

–Katrina: “I do think it was overall an improvement in the style of debating and information presentation. Less formality and more info. They had to think on their feet a bit, and not just give scripted soundbites. An excellent first effort melding technology with the idea that real people count. I give it a C+.”

–Think Different:

YouTube won the Democratic debate on Monday. It was akin to watching commercials during the Superbowl. You never knew what was coming, but, you felt it would be good.

The Internet site made the democratic Debate hosted by CNN into a three-dimensional event. The video questions were pithy, sometimes serious and occasionally outrageous. Watching those Internet queries by ordinary people allowed the nation and the candidates participate in a different definition of democracy. It was a pioneering experience enabling the candidates to watch and feel the questions often punctuated with music, wild facial expressions and even props for emphasis.

–Papamoka:

For the most part this was the first time that I have ever seen such a great debate because the questions were from real people…….I’ve always questioned the strict formats of the past Presidential election debates where a panel of reporters or only a moderator is asking the questions. Events like that seem canned to me and questionable and the questions presented to the candidates are not coming from the people but a reporter thinking that they know what people want to hear.

Tonight’s debate on CNN was all about the questions from the people that want to know where every single candidate stands on issues that actually effect them as an individual. Real people, real lives, real questions that the responses from the candidates showed the differences amongst them all.

–RH Reality Check:

The first ever CNN-You Tube debate was a huge success because real people asked real questions without any pretense. The candidates responded with what seemed to be more candid and direct answers, often speaking directly to the voter, as opposed to a discussion between elite politicians and elite media. The videos, sometimes humorous, more often informed and serious, won the debate, and make it hard to imagine going back to the rigid formality of debates past. The debate format is further evidence of a real shift in politics as usual, spurred on by the democratization that new media technology fosters.