DEBATE NIGHT - A NEW EXPERIENCE!

politico.com

All eyes will be on the second Presidential Debate tonight at Hofstra University in New York State where President Barack Obama will face off against his challenger, former Governor Mitt Romney.  News reports estimate that 70 million people will be tuned in to watch the performances of these two men vying for the highest office of the land.  Tonight’s format is a town hall meeting where all questions will come from individual American citizens.  All the hype, hyperbole and action is focused on which man will come out swinging and land a solid performance. 

I will be watching the debate tonight in a well-lit conference room in Fayetteville, North Carolina with approximately seven flat-screen televisions ranging from 32 inches to a large movie-type screen.  There will be 15 of us in attendance, all political bloggers.  I received the invite from a fellow writer who indicated that it would be a good experience for me.  We are challenged with writing twitter messages throughout the debate performance.  Each writer has the challenge of writing a message every five minutes.  That corresponds to a total of 18 messages over the course of the 90 minute debate.


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As I understand it, all twitter messages will be going out under one twitter address.  Unfortunately, I do not have that address information as of yet.  Even though I have a twitter account, I have as yet to send out even one message.  I am told that we will each have an I-Pad for composing our messages.  We hit ‘send’ and they are then quickly reviewed and sent out into twitter land. 

The only restriction on us is that we must use appropriate language with our messages.  We are allowed to write whatever we wish and support whichever candidate we so choose.  Of course, twitter messages have a limited character count so that will be far away the most significant challenge I suspect I will face.  I have no concerns about being able to write my comments and messages but I will have to forego my usual embellishment and wordiness as I write my tweets.

I have been told that there will be cameras on us.  Evidently, it will be part of a documentary that is being filmed about the presidential election in North Carolina.  I plan to keep a record of my messages and share them on one of my blogs later this week.  I’m hoping that doing the work of creating messaging won’t take away from my experience of watching the two men debate.  I’m sure most of my work will focus on how President Obama is facing the challenge of performing at a higher level than the first debate.

Feels like the ‘The Game’ to me right now.  I am having those pre-game Ohio State-Michigan jitters I get every November.  Not for the tweeting or the composing of messages.  I am anxious for my candidate to do well.