Plants and Weeds

November 30, 2007

They just keep turning up. Right after the YouTube debate, we learned the man in charge of the Don’t Ask Don’t Tell policy question worked extensively for the Clintons, followed by the revelation that the abortion question was asked by an Edwards supporter and feminist videoblogger, the Log Cabin Republican was an Obama supporter, the person who asked about trade sanctions on China was working for a labor union and whose husband is a major Democratic contributor and this morning, we find out the woman who asked about America’s reputation abroad is, in fact, a former intern for the Council on American Islamic Relations.

Its as though Republicans lost complete control of a debate that forced them to confront a platform that is entirely dominated by the left, with predictable results. Wonder if we heard this as a warning somewhere…

Clearly, this kind of business was not unexpected. CNN debates with CNN writers are pitfalls, and with CNN watchers producing the questions, if their hate mail was any indication, it was going to be a rough ride, without the added bonus of incorporating a system that both CNN and the Republicans couldn’t control. A lot of blame is being laid at the feet of the network who sponsored the debate, and also, at the host of the debate, both of which seem to be unsuspecting victims more than anything. According to CNN via Media Matters, they attempted what they thought would be an effective vetting process.

With only a week to go before the Republican CNN/YouTube debate next Wednesday, voters are lighting up the video site with serious and not-so-serious questions for the eight candidates…

Most questions online have been pulled from public viewing for review, but many of the remaining posts involve asking the candidates to defend their opposition to gay marriage and abortion. Those kinds of “lobbying grenades” would be disqualified by the CNN selection team, Mr. Bohrman said.

“There are quite a few things you might describe as Democratic ‘gotchas,’ and we are weeding those out,” Mr. Bohrman said. CNN wants to ensure that next Wednesday’s Republican event is “a debate of their party.”…

Mr. Cooper and two of his researchers are involved in the selection process, Mr. Bohrman noted.

Oddly enough, Media Matters was concerned with CNN’s process, since it seemed like the Republicans were getting a more detailed vetting process with the Democrats, who had to worry, though admittedly without any basis in reality, that Republicans would sneak in clever questions designed to destroy or embarrass their slate of candidates. CNN, they seemed to believe at least around the time of the Democratic debate, was at the mercy of a group of people who are incredibly adept at new media, a market that CNN is struggling to handle and control for its own purposes, and that those users would subvert CNN’s process by crafting questions that were Trojan horse–Republican operatives, Republican questioners, even Republican celebrities would slip past CNN’s radar. Why their concerns were baseless rests on one very basic principle: Republicans just haven’t used the new media for that purpose, and probably, to be honest, can’t.

Democrats, on the other hand, can, and CNN fell willing victim to what appears to be an ambush. CNN, at least, approached with the intention of doing a Republican debate, but with the idea that Republicans valued a very specific line of thinking. They asked questions about Bible literacy, punishing women who have abortions, etc., perhaps believing that a majority of Republicans care at all about those issues. The caricature portrayed in the media and elsewhere would give the impression that more than a solid minority of Republicans are Bible-beating, women-oppressing, gun-loving freaks, and perhaps CNN believed that it was giving the “base” a chance to really find out who shared their values. Most Republicans, in reality, don’t really care what their candidate thinks about whether the story of Jonah really happened (heck, the front-runner is a Bad Catholic), and while even I may believe that there may be underlying desire to punish women present in the most radical pro-lifers, absence of punishment talk from the general abortion debate should be a clear sign that most Republicans are looking at bigger issues than whether they’ll get the chance to stone the harlots. Theoretically, the only people who care about those things are “progressives” or Democrats who aren’t looking to vet but rather to destroy the candidates. But those are also some of the biggest names in YouTube-dom, and the ones who knew to be visible, look normal, have a solid question that CNN has been flogging for months prepared and ready to go.

But, if you’ve spent your life under a rock or in academia or in journalism, sure. You’re probably pretty comfortable with the idea that you’re just helping us out by passing along ridiculous questions. Add to that the slim actual Republican pickings–which consisted of probably one David All question, a question from Red State update and three people in Nebraska asking about the North American Union and the NAFTA Superhighway–and you’ve arrived at what happened Wednesday night.

Really, in the end, it doesn’t matter who asked the question. If you can’t show up an animated snowman, you sure as hell aren’t going to show up a Democratic competitor, and frankly, the fact that the eight candidates bothered to go on what amounts to the Dancing with the Stars Presidential debate, stuns even me. The Democrats faked outrage and launched a party-wide boycott of any and all Fox News debates, moderated by Brit Hume and with questions written by serious Fox News workers, and if any debate was going to be a Republican ambush, it would have been that one. It may have been chicken, but the strategy at least recognized that the people who really cared about them “engaging the enemy” so to speak are people who aren’t going to vote for you anyway. That said, the candidates did okay, the argument that the forum facilitated was generally good and better than in some other debates, and the simple questions and open formatting gave them an excuse to drop the posturing which gave us a view of the different personalities and personal beliefs of the candidates; we came out the with knowledge that we have, at the very least, a diverse, fluid slate of candidates whose nuanced differences are representative of those within the party. Its a wide-open race, and current events of the next few months may do more to shape the field than any vetting process.

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