A new kind of debate

The discussion part of the Republican Presidential Debate on Wednesday opened with a song about the candidates that was performed by a citizen who was talented and, more importantly, a YouTuber.

Google and YouTube streamed the event live. Chris Nandor's musical online video was selected with many others - some more serious, some a little less - to address the candidates and participate in the national conversation.

Moderator Anderson Cooper said, "He does it in a way that reminds us this is definitely a new kind of debate."

Indeed, things are changing.

Our increasingly impersonal world is still assimilating the Internet's effects on our ability to communicate. You can live your entire daily life without setting foot outside your door.

Perhaps it's the online availability of everything that's sapping our motivation to do so. Political participation by young people in the country is embarrassingly low.

People don't have time to go out and vote, they have e-mail to check and eBay auctions to watch. They have YouTube videos to create.

But the Debates '07 gave citizens anchored to their computers nationwide the chance to engage the public opinion and question the candidates. The Debates finally joined the Internet age.

The very technology that allows the lazy and lucky to live their lives from an office chair was the defining factor in the selection of questions for the candidates.

You can find the entire transcript on nytimes.com at the interactive media package called, "Republican Debate: Analyzing the Details." Click on any line and the accompanying video will jump to the spot. You can even browse by question topic.

These days, even if your computer can't connect you to the things you care about, it can connect you to someone who can. And for those that missed the Debates on Wednesday, they're fully archived online.

I suggest the following to my peers and the entire student community nationwide: we have run out of excuses.

If we can flip open our iBooks, put up a video on YouTube and ask Governor Huckabee about Jesus and the death penalty, I don't think anyone is too inconvenienced by their life to get involved in the election of people that run their world.

The number of registered students who voted on campus in the Erie County Executive election didn't even hit the double digits this year. Only a million young people registered to vote for Rock the Vote 2004. Nobody who knew the election was taking place showed up to run for UB Senate.

We've got no excuse in 2008. All of the information is available to us and located conveniently eight clicks away from anything.

February is going to be an important, busy month for presidential nomination. On the fifth, we might meet the two major party candidates running to replace President George Bush.

That replacement - the one thing we've all had an opinion on since high school - ought to draw the most "young person" attention since Donnie Darko.

Penn State student Sarah Lederach asked from the comfort of her own online video how the candidates will take responsibility for "out-of-control" national debt, which someday we as young people will have to pay for.

The Republicans danced around the question and took the opportunity on camera to boast about themselves and insult each other, but the question wasn't wasted.

At least Sarah asked.