We thought we shouldn’t skip on this magnificent video of YouTube’s “Professor in the Elections ‘08″ . This man names the presidential candidates after various Beatles songs, very original and clever. This first video- Election ‘08 and The Beatles: Part 1- is about the Democratic presidential nominees. See for yourself which democratic nominee is most compatible with  which Beatle song!

This is the video in which YouTube users were asked to turn in their questions for tonight’s Republican candidate’s debate.

Tonight is the night of the second CNN-YouTube debate. This time it is not the democratic nominees but the Republican presidential candidates that will debate with each other and respond to questions that were sent in from Internet users, in the form of short YouTube videos.

The debate will be staged in St Petersburg, Florida. Although initially the idea was to let an online voting system make a selection of the thousands of questions that were sent in, the directors of the debate decided to select the questions themselves.

Like David Bohrman, senior vice president of CNN, says that the internet is still too underdeveloped a medium to set the agenda for a national debate. Bohrman regrets that he had to appoint his journalists to sift through all of the questions that were sent in by internet users, but he also said that it was necessary. He adds: “If you would have taken the most-viewed questions last time, the top question would have been whether Arnold Schwarzenegger was a cyborg sent to save the planet Earth.”

The CNN-YouTube debate is one of several debates in the run-up to the presidential elections in 2008 that use new kinds of media to organize the debates. One of the goals of organizing this type of modern debate is to attract people to vote, and to bridge the gap between politics and the “average citizen”.

Watch the CNN-YouTube Republican debate tonight via CNN

Source: wired.com

Watch this video and find out why it has historically been difficult for a third party candidate to win the American elections.

Source of this article: www.cnn.com

At the Iowa Democratic Party Jefferson Jackson dinner Saturday night in Iowa, it became clear that Barack Obama has gained strenght over the last few days. He held a stunning, forceful and passionate speech, which caused even Edwards’ campaign manager to sing loudly: “Fired up! Ready to go! Fired up! Ready to go!”, Obama’s new campaign catch phrase.

He advocated that the 2008 presidential elections will differ significantly from the last elections, proclaiming that “Telling Americans what they think they want to hear instead of telling the American people what they need to hear just won’t do it.” This phrase was also a remark of attack directed to Hillary Clinton, who is repeatedly being accused of not being clear on where she stands with regard to many of the important issues.

Iowa traditionally is the most important state where presidential nominees can make their mark and take a lead in the elections. In january the Iowa caucus will be held, an occasion at which it has more than often been decided who will be the party’s chosen presidential candidate.

Read more about the Iowa Democratic Party Jefferson Jackson dinner at Time.com

The central topic at the Democratic Debate in Philadelphia this week was the issue of Iran. While all the Democratic candidates seem to agree on the issue of Iraq, when it comes to Iran, one of them stands alone.

Senator Hillary Clinton is the only Democratic candidate who voted for the Kyl-Lieberman amendment last month. This amendment designates, among other things, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist organization.

In the debate Clinton was heavily criticized by her opponents, in particular by John Edwards, who made a strong performance at the debate, trying to establish himself as The Alternative to Clinton. Referring to the vote for military action in Iraq in 2002, he said: “A lot of us on this stage have learned our lessons the hard way: That you give this president an inch, and he’ll take a mile”.

At the time of the Iraq-vote, both Edwards and Clinton voted for the resolution. Edwards later apologized for the vote, but Clinton has always refused to apologize, which initially caused unrest among the Democrats. Clinton defended her refusal by saying: “If the most important thing to any of you is choosing someone who did not cast that vote or has said his vote was a mistake, then there are others to choose from.”

With that unrest appearing to be put to rest, Clinton has now opened up another Pandora’s box with her vote for the sanctions against Iran. Her campaign released a statement last week saying: “We must use all the tools at our disposal to address the serious challenge posed by Iran, including diplomacy, economic pressure, and sanctions.[…]The Bush Administration should use this opportunity to finally engage in robust diplomacy to achieve our objective of ending Iran’s nuclear weapons program, while also averting military action. That is the policy I support.”

Of the major candidates, Barack Obama is the only one that hasn’t voted for the war on Iraq. He couldn’t have, because he was a state lawmaker in Illinois at the time, but he continually reminds voters that he was against the war in Iraq from the start. On the new sanctions against Iran, Obama said: “It is important to have tough sanctions on Iran, particularly on the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, which supports terrorism. But these sanctions must not be linked to any attempt to keep our troops in Iraq, or to take military action against Iran.”

In the Philadelphia debate, the Iranian issue was used against Clinton as a way to slap on a Bush mask. Whatever the effect, with both Obama and Edwards going for the same bone of The Alternative for Clinton, the latter might actually still come out the strongest.