Face The State Staff Report
In a forum only the information age could produce, U.S. Senate hopefuls Mark Udall and Bob Schaffer took questions submitted by the public and answered them via YouTube.
The candidates, positioned appropriately with Udall, a Democrat, on the left, and Schaffer, Republican, on the right, tackled the most prevalent Colorado issues such as gun rights, higher education funding, renewable energy, water rights, and union elections.
The popular video sharing Web site hosted the debates as part of its "You Choose ’08" page, which Time magazine selected as one of the 50 best Web sites of the past year.
Udall and Schaffer did not answer the questions in real time but instead responses were recorded at their respective campaign headquarters. The debate was posted Tuesday.
Udall’s recording was clearly more produced with better lighting, video quality, and with his Web site fading in and out on the bottom of his screen at the beginning of each of his answers. An animated Udall campaign logo also came up at the end of his segments.
Schaffer’s recording was much more bare bones, although he did plug his website at the end of each of his answers.