The CNN/YouTube Republican Debate this past Wednesday was a real disappointment.

First off, it should be said that this wasn’t a “debate” of issues with substantive facts in support of arguments. Instead, it was — as all of these forums have been since the dawn of television — a pageant of market-tested, meticulously-rehearsed one-liners.

Anderson Cooper wasn’t focused on keeping candidates on time and on issue. It isn’t an easy job keeping politically-driven egos corralled. He has good presence and certainly knows the issues, but needs some training in moderator skills. CNN should keep him as a moderator (not the least reason for which is the fact that he has such a high-profile stature as a Katrina/New Orleans reporter).

Most critically, the range of questions asked resulted in too much time spent concentrating on hot-button topics which didn’t foster a real debate on issues most Americans worry about for the future of our nation, with an undue amount of time spent on circus sideshow questions, and highly-polished campaign ads produced by the candidates. The process for selecting questions was secretive, leading to (what I think was) a ridiculous assertion by Republican pundits like Sean Hannity that Democratic “operatives” planted questions.

If Democrats had really planted questions, there would have been far more challenging questions exposing cracks in the Republican ideology since Ronald Reagan. There would have been more questions in general about corporate welfare for the military-industrial complex and oil industry, and how subsidization of war policy negatively impacts domestic security on everything from safe airports, to safe bridges, to safe levees, to a safe environment, to safe productive schools, to safe food products, etc. There would have been more questions about combatting poverty and health issues by promoting economic development and sustainable livelihoods through preferential support for small, diversified, agile businesses — including support for family farms which supply local markets (in the smart French manner).

Instead, there wasn’t a single question asked about the laggard Gulf Coast recovery from Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, nothing about global warming and the need to conserve energy and lower emissions, nothing about green re-building or how, in general, this nation should prepare for a much more challenging 21st Century which the next president is going to leave to our children.

I’m still of the opinion that we have a responsibility to continue fighting for a presidential debate in New Orleans, because of the lessons learned here, and because the social and environmental challenges which New Orleans is confronting offer a unique lens into the future of the rest of the United States.

I think CNN/YouTube still provides one way to get around the Commission on Presidential Debate’s piss-poor judgment in choosing a handful of sleepy college towns to host debates, rather than New Orleans.

Moreover, candidates themselves should start challenging their opponents to a debate in New Orleans to demonstrate that they understand that this place is a canary in a coalmine — a test for how our nation confronts the challenges of the future.

It isn’t difficult to produce a YouTube video. We could create a YouTube channel, and/or a common tag, hosted on another blog or wiki, to start generating a buzz.

As far as I can tell, you can’t have one multi-word tag, unless it’s pre-existing, without punctuation (e.g., a backslash or underscore) — you have to use multiples of tags. Here are some useful tags to use: New Orleans Katrina 2008 CNN/YouTube Republican Democrat debate election president.

I have an easy-to-use Canon Powershot with video capabilities and a tripod for anyone to borrow who lacks resources and wants to keep the cameras rolling.