Embracing the Internet in all its brashness and irreverence, eight Democratic presidential hopefuls differed over Iraq, Darfur, same-sex marriage and more offbeat issues in a lively Monday-night debate driven by dozens of amateur inquisitors.
A mix of serious policy talk and sophomoric humor, the session sponsored by CNN and YouTube broke ground in style and content. The candidates responded to more than three dozen homemade videos -- including a query from a snowman asking in falsetto about global warming -- among nearly 3,000 submitted from around the world. (The candidates told the snowman they favored a more vigorous U.S. response.)
The unusual format drew the candidates out on matters rarely discussed at the presidential level, such as their children's sex education and the willingness of at least some to work in the White House for minimum wage.
Sens. Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware and Christopher J. Dodd of Connecticut joked that after a career in politics, they couldn't afford the pay cut.
The two-hour session, on the campus of The Citadel military college in Charleston, S.C., also included a few sparks, in particular over the war in Iraq. But perhaps the most noteworthy aspect was the freewheeling format and the lively session it produced: something much more akin to a game show -- complete with commercial breaks -- than anything Lincoln or Douglas might have imagined.
Kathleen Hall Jamieson, a University of Pennsylvania expert on political communication, called the program a milestone in the history of presidential debates. The humor in several videos inspired interest in topics that might otherwise bore viewers, she said, and so did the images of real people asking about actual troubles in their lives. "You're less likely to lose track if you get the memory hook of the visual question," she said.
The candidates, standing at identical lecterns, watched the videos on a giant screen to their right. The questioners appearing on-screen were alternately earnest and silly, scripted and nervously unrehearsed. They wore ball caps and sunglasses and sprinkled their questions with uhs and ums, the way people normally talk.
Whether it was the physical remove of the questioners or the uninhibited nature of the Internet, the format made for a number of unlikely moments, such as when the candidates were asked by a Planned Parenthood worker in Pennsylvania whether they had ever discussed sex with their children using "medically accurate and age-appropriate information."
