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John Edwards Speaks at MySpace / MTV Presidential Dialogue

Former Sen. John Edwards speaking at the MySpace/MTV dialogue

“What I don’t understand is George Bush”

A question and answer forum with Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards aired September 27, 2007 at noon on myspace.com/election2008. Edwards is the first in the series of online presidential candidate dialogues.

Screen shot of the event

Edwards answered questions from college aged audience members moderated by MTV’s SuChin Pak and Gideon Yago, and computer text questions moderated by Chris Cillizza of the Washington Post.

The online audience was able to express their opinion of the Senator’s answers by voting on the same webpage as the video streaming. Overall Edwards received high marks as indicated by the chart above. Cillizza kept Edwards apprised of the online audience response.

Partially blind audience member asks about stem cell research

Question topics ranged across the board in the hour-long dialogue, including the Iraq war, education, the environment, and energy.

Speaking of energy independence, Edwards called for American sacrifice, receiving a round of applause, stating “You can’t spend and innovate your way out of this problem.”

Several times during the forum Edwards asked for more time to answer a question and the moderators happily complied. Coming from the tightly controlled answer time of last night’s MSNBC Democratic Presidential Debate, Edwards seemed to be accustomed to wanting to say more than the time provided. Edwards appeared relaxed and comfortable at the forum with ample time to thoroughly answer each question.

Edwards answered the questions directly without overtly pandering to his audience, for which the audience expressed appreciation.

Asked at the end why he was running for president, Edwards stated, “I’m running for president of the United States so everyone can have the chances I had.”

At the end of the online feed after Edwards had left the stage, MTV moderator SuChin Pak said to the audience “I’ll met you out at the hotdog stand.”