YOUTUBE AFTERTHOUGHTS. To contradict my own devaluing of the YouTube debate, it did have one huge upside: The whole thing was posted to YouTube, in easily digestible and sortable chunks. That's quite a big deal, I think, and it makes the whole exercise significantly more useful than if it had just served the population who happened to tune in that night. There's no reason these debates should be lost the second they go off the air. Speaking of those folks who actually watched the thing, the overall ratings were disappointing -- a bit lower than the last Democratic debate -- but among 18-34 year-olds, the YouTube debate pulled in 407,000 -- setting a record for cable news programming. Lastly, rewatching some of the chunks, I think my impression of the debate was partially so negative because Anderson Cooper gave the Democrats so little time to answer the questions. I could be wrong, but I'm nearly certain that the last debate afforded more minutes for response and exposition. So maybe what I'd like to see is an actual YouTube debate, with 25 questions chosen by the audience, and each candidate getting to record a response at a length they choose. That way, you'd not only get more substantive answers, but viewers could pick and choose who they wanted to hear from, and the marginal candidates couldn't complain they were getting shafted on time. --Ezra Klein
