Online town hall: A political revolution?

On Thursday, Obama conducted the first ever online town hall in an effort to make good on his promises of government openness.

I have to say that I was impressed when I first heard about the idea. Since this past campaign season, politicians have been wisely using the Internet more and more to reach out to the younger generation. I see these efforts, including the online town hall, as an ingenious way to reach a generation that supposedly is apathetic to politics. (I say supposedly because I don't subscribe to that belief.)

Since initially hearing about the idea, though, I have heard some disturbing aspects. Nicole Ferraro of the Editor's blog on Internet Evolution says that only five of the over 100,000 questions submitted online was used in the town hall meeting even though the meeting was about one hour and twenty minutes.

Plus, people were allowed to vote on the questions, so that the most popular questions would get answered in the meeting. According to Ferraro, one question asked got six votes online. Another only got three. In total, there were over 3 million votes cast for questions. (Insert distinct sarcasm here.) So yes, the question that only got three votes must have been one of the most popular.

Obviously, there were some downsides to the meeting. The online questions did not dominate the meeting, as I was led to believe, and the questions really weren't chosen by the people (instead they must have been chosen by Obama staffers who picked convenient questions for the pres).

Plus, the pres decided to take a jab at my generation's intelligence and concerns. By questioning why three questions about legalizing marijuana were the most popular, he made it sound like everyone was part of the internet audience was a pot head.

As quoted by Ferraro, Obama said, "I don't know what this says about the online audience, but I don't want people to think. ... This was fairly popular question, and the answer is 'no.' I don't think that is a good strategy to grow our economy."

Sorry, Mr. President, not everyone in the online audience was high that night, much like some people who are in the Special Olympics are good at bowling.

So basically, as I have said, there were some faults to the meeting, but I have to say the idea was fairly forward. Politicans should continually try to use the Internet to reach the newer generation, even if we all are supposedly pot smokers.