Written by Jay Rosen. Reported by Jen C., David Cohn,
Sarah Cove, Beverly Davis, River Curtis-Stanley,
Neil Nagraj, Nikki Summer, and Denise Wheeler.
cross posted at The Huffington Post

Jordan Williams was watching the debate with his mother and began jumping up and down when his video came on, and the candidates all turned their heads toward him. It asked how Obama or Clinton would reply to critics who charge that “one is not authentically black enough, or the other is not satisfactorily feminine.” Williams felt the candidates basically blew him off.

“Much to my chagrin, I felt Senator Clinton just cut off the fact that she’s a woman, instead of answering it.” He felt Obama “made a nice little joke…” (that taxi drivers in New York City seem to know he was black) “but didn’t answer it in the least.” Overall? “I was pretty disappointed by both of them.”

CNN, which had exclusive control over which questions got asked in last night’s co-production with YouTube, had a Kucinich supporter ask Dennis Kucinich a Kucinich question. It asked another questioner to re’shoot his video to make it 27seconds long. YouTube flew ten top contributors to Charleston, but none knew if their questions would make it on air. Some did, most didn’t. Meanwhile, others were watching at home hoping to see themselves and doubting it would ever happen. But then it did.

We also asked Steve Grove, politics editor of YouTube, what his goals were. “To further our mission of connecting the candidates and the voters directly to each other, without middlemen,” he said. Well, they got part of the way. Anderson Cooper was very much in the middle. But that’s not to say the “direct” connection didn’t happen.

read more at THE HUFFINGTON POST