Candidate Surveys With A New Media Twist
November 26, 2007, 7:41pm
Issue-specific candidate questionnaires on everything from gun rights to abortion have been a staple of presidential politics for several election cycles, and in the 2008 race, some interest groups are adding a new media element to that tradition. They are getting candidates to go on the record on film and posting their answers to the Internet for everyone to watch.
Twelve of the current Republican and Democratic candidates recently accepted the ongoing challenge of the election reform group Why Tuesday, and the group has video of another candidate, Republican Fred Thompson while protected by aides, walking away from an opportunity to take the challenge.
And today, the Save Darfur Coalition, a human rights group focused on ending genocide in that region of the African nation of Sudan, unveiled a similar “voter education project.”
So far, the project includes five short video op-eds of the candidates that complement their stated positions on Darfur, Africa at large or Darfur. Visitors to the coalition’s Web site also are encouraged to e-mail candidates who don’t yet have Darfur-specific policies.
“The next president of the United States must walk into the Oval Office with a cogent and ambitious plan to end the suffering in Darfur,” coalition spokeswoman Allyn Brooks-LaSure said in a release. “Darfur’s suffering has galvanized millions of Americans, who all demand an end to the Darfur genocide, regardless of party, ethnicity, religion, red state or blue state.”
Here are the video op-eds from the first five candidates, Democrats Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, Barack Obama and Bill Richardson; and just one Republican, John McCain:
Categories: Producer's Picks, John Edwards, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Bill Richardson, John McCain, Foreign Affairs, Human Rights
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