I blogged five “we-better-prepare-now-for-this” points regarding Presidential campaigns + YouTube that I think you’ll find interesting:

1. Which YouTube videos will we respond to?
2. Will the candidate respond directly every time? Will we use a spokesblogger? Will we take the original video and edit it with “fact check” type frames to discredit the video?
3. How can we develop our own team of tech-savvy supporters who are probably better at this stuff than we are?
4. Will we embrace our modern task-force of volunteers and ask them to create a video responding to the clip?
5. Who is monitoring and helping “bury” unsavory digg, reddit, and del.icio.us links which would draw attention to the attack?

Taping has always been going on. YouTube provides instant access – more “life as a searchable database” than “life as C-SPAN.” Nexis for the masses.

Indeed, there will be torquing – a noisy stew of Jib-Jab, Swift Boat and Jon Stewart clips. I hope we can make sense of it all.

Along came the blogosphere and the readers had some place to go (and this time they could talk back). It seems that history will repeat and we will now transition to the videosphere. Why should be expect an improvement in the level of discourse compared to what happened during the last transition?

The only thing that may be different is that (as the macacca incident showed) candidates will have to assume that they are always “on”. This may make it even more difficult to get them to say anything substantive even in smaller settings.

The change may yield positive results, in that it could force politicians to issue clear statements to address the confusion created by competing clips. “Let me make this perfectly clear. . .” may be the new catch phrase. Of course, once a clarifying statement is made, there will be less wiggle room. Politics without wiggle room? Not in this lifetime.

I’m not so naive as to believe that this will clean up politics, but it will change the rules of engagement somewhat.The ability to appear clear and direct will still matter more than being clear and direct.

And maybe, just maybe, we’ll see leaders who articulate governing philosophies rather than talking points.

Or perhaps politics will devolve further. We will elect politicians who appeal to us, on a primal level, no matter what they say. Or we may find that the new system punishes experience, forcing parties to nominate “blank slate” candidates.

I also wonder just what effect being able to see the freewheeling — and sometimes venomous — cut and thrust of electoral politics will have on societies that are not as democratic as Canada or the US.

And Jeff — having something I wrote called fascinating by you was a great way to start my day. Thanks.

One of the outcomes of the French presidential campaign’s YouTubing is that people from all over the Francophone world are participating in it. Expect them same to happen here.

The ability of people in relatively closed access societies to participate in the election campaigns of relatively democratic ones is an unexpected dividend of globalization.