Via Dodd’s Blog, a letter sent to DNC Chair Howard Dean. Emphasis mine.
Dear Chairman Dean:
I write today to urge you to join the growing chorus of those in the blogosphere, those in academia and citizens from across the country who are urging major media outlets to release video of any and every debate during the 2008 primary election season into the public domain or make it available under a Creative Commons (Attribution) license.
A presidential campaign is not about the candidates who run. A presidential campaign is about the issues they present, and the constituents they hope to serve. The Democratic Party supports and advances the issues most Americans care about, and the Democratic Party would serve every American best. It is in our interest as a Party to make public our ideas by allowing video of the Presidential debates to be viewed by anyone, at any time.
While copyright protections remain essential, I see no cause to maintain copyright on Presidential primary debates. Because the campaign will continue until our convention next summer in Denver, we will have many chances to gather and discuss the issues, and making the product of those discussions free and open to the public simply makes sense.
I urge you to join those calling for the unrestricted release of debate video, and I hope you agree that by doing so, the Democratic Party will continue to spread our message and inform millions of Americans of where we stand.
Warm Regards,
Senator Chris Dodd
Giving the public easy access to debate video is a phenomenal idea. I’d love to have them online and available for voters to view at their convenience. It’s also beneficial to the candidates, especially since there are currently so many of them. Campaign sites could have a compilation of the candidate over several debates on their official sites. There are so many possibilities.
I’d like to see the other seven candidates join Dodd in calling for open access.
14 responses so far ↓
http://www.lessig.org/blog/archives/003763.shtml
Dodd wasn’t the first.
I’m pretty sure that Obama and Edwards sent letters as well.
More red meat for the blog community, that’s all this is.
I wonder if the GOP would follow suit.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/05/opinion/l05gop.html?_r=1&n=Top%2fOpinion%2fEditorials%20and%20Op%2dEd%2fLetters&oref=slogin
You’re right, Archie.
Why doesn’t he start right here by doing, as the LG did, and write a post?
Or, do a video blog for all the CLP’ers to see?
He may see the growing importance of blogs, but hasn’t really demonstrated that first hand in his home state.
Dodd did write a guest post for CTLP not to long ago. View it here.
toucan - When choosing a Presidential candidate the GOP, and I, are more concerned with the content of a candidate’s character thaqn the color of their skin. In that respect the GOP has the Democrat party beat hands down. There was a wide diversity of thought on that stage Thursday night - from abortion, to the war, to taxes the candidates presented almost every view on the spectrum. Contrasted with the party line stances of the Dems the week earlier it provided for much less of a choice for Democrats.
I do stand corrected, CGG. Thanks!
In looking over the post and comments, it doesn’t appear as though he ever responed to the comments or questions. Not that I’d expect him to, but seems the expectations were different for Fedele.
That’s funny - the comment calling out keithie for criticizing Fedele for not instantly responding but forgetting to do the same for Dodd has been deleted. I think nutmeg_constitution posted it.
I guess we can’t have our left wing hero’s double-standards revealed, eh liberal moderators?
TS,
I think we were watching two different Republican debates on Wednesday. Abortion, everyone said pretty much the same thing, except for Rudy, but I’m got the impression he doesn’t even have a clear understanding of his own abortion opinion. The war, was basically good war badly executed, with the exception of Ron Paul. The only difference on how to fight terror seemed to be at what point do we go in a bomb Iran. And taxes, the only really different policies I heard were Ron Paul, and Brownback, and I am sure you would be more than happy to hand him that dull ax.
The dems showed a great diversity on how to execute the fight against terror (If offence the best defense, or is defense the best defense.) Healthcare also had a wide variety of opinion. Though I must say at times Hillary would have seemed more comfortable at the GOP debate, I mean come on, it’s easy to say you’d retaliate, but against who and with what army. Barack caught a lot of flack for his response, but I think his was far more thoughtful.
Good call, Architect. Exactly — Dodd is a Democrat and Fedele is a Republican. That explains everything in terms of expectations, right?
Republican leader writes comments, then he should stay around, take a few punches, and provide some insightful answers to the great readers/writers from this website. Democratic leader writes comments — oh, very good — go ahead and take off, no need to stay around — we’re simply blessed to receive comments from you.
I think everyone is making a mountain out of a mole hill. Fedele hasn’t appeared in the comments section, but he has answered reader questions in a blog posting. Also he does want to live blog in the future.
Participating in the comments section after a guest post is encouraged but not required. Also remember most politicians aren’t yet regular readers of blogs. They don’t necessarily know that sticking around in the comments section is expected.
I can see why the networks wouldn’t want a debate video released into the public domain right away (after all, the network had to incur some sort of expense to coördinate with all the candidates, get the location, pay for the camera guy, grip, gaffer, best boy and other weird sounding positions that are in the credits at the end of movies. So they should have an exclusive for a news cycle or two I guess.
But after 24 or 48 hours or whatever, I would assume that these debates wouldn’t be so newsworthy anymore, and they could be released to be aired on other stations or on the web or wherever. I guess they could be like sports highlights, where if another network aired them, they’d have to say “Courtesy MSNBC” in the corner or whatever.
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