voter generated content

Stuff you should know and see that I won't be blogging in depth:

• Looks like we have another YEO! John Tyler Hammons, a 17 year old freshman at the University of Oklahoma was elected the mayor of Muskegee, a town of 38,000 people. He ran on a good government platform and won in a run-off against the former mayor, capturing 70% of the vote. Way to go John. - The Politico
• Young evangelicals continue to abandon Bush and the GOP over Iraq and the economy. - Huffington Post
• The Godfathers of GOTV testing and research, Gerber and Green, have a new book out pimping Peer to Peer as the best form of organizing. Direct mail and robo-call consultants everywhere are not happy. - Campaigns and Elections
• Two articles say that Obama will need the "senior vote" if he is to beat McCain. I tend not to agree. There are more voters under 30 than over 65, and in some contests we are already performing on par with their turnout. It all depends on how many new young voters show up in November. - Democratic Strategist
• Obama is the king of voter-generated music tributes. - The Politico
• Republicans held a fashion show on the National Mall to show off their new convention swag. This was my favorite photo. And no, this is not a joke. - Minnesota Monitor

Who at the GOP thought it was a good idea to bring back MC Hammer pants? And I'm pretty sure that if that little girl were a lib'rul, we'd hear wingnuts screaming about flag desecration.

I've been predicting that we'd see some political machinima for at least nine months. I assumed it would be satire (Red v. Blue is such low-hanging fruit), but now it finally arrives in the form of the CNN/YouTube debate:

Here's (I think) a sampling of the questions they will be asking:

Like a lot of folks online, I'm still a little pissed that the video selection process was not open to the public. It means that CNN is still a pretty big gatekeeper in terms of the content of the public debate. In the most likely scenario, CNN will merely pick people who ask the questions that they would have asked anyway, making the voter-generated questions nothing more than a new paint-job on a beat up old car. In an a worse case scenario, the questions would be sprinkled with a few outrageously quirky folks who would make the American public look exceedingly dumb or freakish (just as an added kick in the teeth).

Consider this an open thread to bitch about or report on your thoughts and observations of the first ever "citizen debate."

Update:
I hope this girl gets her question featured:

Update II: Looks like CNN is already taking advantage of the freakshow.