Finally, a presidential candidate has seized the opportunity presented by the CNN/YouTube debates and posted a question of his colleagues. Remember when techPresident blogger David All urged his Republican colleagues to inject a question into the Democratic debate? Well, it looks like the creative minds at Chris Dodd’s campaign–which has already distinguished itself with a string of web innovations–were paying attention. A few days ago, they posted this question from Senator Dodd for this Wednesday’s Republican CNN/YouTube event:
Here’s the transcript of Dodd’s question:
Hi I’m Chris Dodd.
I’m from East Haddam, Connecticut.
And my family and I are spending a little time in Iowa these days.
I have a question about the Constitution. Many Americans are concerned that the Administration seems to be making a false choice. That is to be safer we have to give up rights. I don’t believe that, I wonder if you do. And if you believe we aught not to give up our rights, what would you do in order to protect our Constitution?
This is brilliant. Now, will CNN, which claims to have “the best political team on television,” take Dodd’s question seriously, and finally do something really innovative with the internet? Or will they maintain the quaint schoolmarmish notion that they have to weed out discordant questions in order to “ensure that next Wednesday’s Republican event is a ‘debate of their party,'” as David Bohrman, CNN’s DC bureau chief put it? C’mon, David, including Dodd’s question would even be good television!
We like this idea so much we’ve started a Facebook group to rally support for cross-candidate questions.