Youtubular

Last night's Democratic YouTube/CNN debate was an interesting event. Many of the Youtube submissions were clever, most of them asked questions of substance. The candidates all made good faith efforts to really answer most of the questions posed to them. The variety of questions, and questioners, was a real bonus. Yet I think a few less videos, and more time to answer them, could have improved the debate.

John Edwards did himself a lot of good with this question: "Do you believe that compromise, triangulation will bring about big change? I don't. I think the people who are powerful in Washington - big insurance companies, big drug companies, big oil companies - they are not going to negotiate. They are not going to give away their power. The only way that they're going to give away their power is if we take it away from them." In this brief moment John Edwards made a powerful case for choosing him over Hillary Clinton. Senator Clinton has accomplished many wonderful things in her career. Yet, when working to reform U.S. healthcare she sought to compromise and negotiate with the healthcare industry. She managed to piss off liberals, conservatives, and everyone else, and health care is still a mess in this country. Senator Clinton would like to see workers treated more fairly by corporate America. And yet, she has sat on the board of Walmart. John Edwards, by contrast, has aggressively fought big-money interests as a trial lawyer-- and won.