The First YouTube Election

Yesterday, I opined that "Web videos are changing politics." Today, Rolling Stone's National Affairs Daily provides some insight as to how they might change politics (for better or worse):

One might hope that the omipresence of handicam reporters would mean that all of the artifice of advance teams and printed backdrops and hand-picked crowds of supporters only will be erroded. Unlike the professionals at CNN who play along and film the fakeness because it makes for pretty TV, the YouTubers out there are dedicated to exposing such artifice as an embarassment. And embarassing it is.

On the other hand, this YouTube threat could also hurtle the stage management of politics into hyperdrive, curtailing the kind retail politics and informal "Listening Tours" like the one Allen was on yesterday. Every candidate suffers from foot in mouth disease occasionally, if left alone without a script in front of a live audience. The consultants and advance men may stop deploying their candidates to the real world to every extent practicable.