Lorie, what the hell are you doing posting on Jim Addisons blog site?

Careful, Drago. If you scroll down to the "Credits" on the right, you will see Lorie is one of the Editors of this page. I, for one, am glad to see her posting over here. Since Alex is working for Giuliani, D.J. hangs at the main page most of the time, and Ed apparently was abducted by aliens and/or Elvis impersonators, it gets lonely over here sometimes.

I'm no fan of the You Tube debate, though, and here's why: there will be tens of thousands of entries, and the choosing will be done by media people who are overtly hostile to Republicans. This enables them to choose questions they would never dare ask themselves without taking responsibility for them.

If the Presidency is a serious matter, candidates should not be expected to answer questions from cartoon characters.

The debate format should be one in which candidates have a free wheeling time to question each other! No MSM input. Or if one debate has a commentator driven emphasis, take the ones from Talk Radio. That would drive the left wild but the fact is, more people listen to Talk Radio than read their blogs so why not?

I have to agree with Jim. Sure all (or most?) of the questions will come from YouTube - but who will be picking which questions? The Florida GOP? If they were, then they should get out in front of this and start letting candidates know what to expect.

If not - I'd say Jim's point has the most merit.

If you look at Romney - he's done these "Ask Mitt Anything" events - and unless they were all totally scripted and controlled - he at least - should be able to answer un-prepped for question.

I think that some of the candidates are just afraid the thing will turn into a farce - kind of like a debate hosted by the Daily Show or something.

I don't think the Republicans should lower themselves to this. CNN doesn't make the rules about what we voters want to see, just say no.

Then schedule a real debate somewhere. These things are a travesty. And someone, please, look up the word debate. This line up of trained seals is not it!

Be dignified.

Ghouliani and Romney are afraid of the "how many of your family members are in uniform" question.

Romney has 5 strapping sons as ghost employees.

As for the spontenaity of the Ask Mitt events. I saw 2 on C-SPAN, both before formal social groups (one was Iowa Elks). The community pillar types. Romney treated like a guest in their house. Canny choice on Romney's part, but until he appears at a civic center or parking lot, it's all "warm welcome". It's human nature, especially for the wall-to-wall oldtimers.

He narrowed risk still further by adding two corallary questions to himself for each one asked by his audience. Smart yet obvious timewasting with lots a buttering-up the crowd in between.