Having a debate in the tubes of the Internets

There was news that many Republican presidential candidates were not going to participate in the YouTube type of debate that the Democratic candidates did on CNN last week. Sure, John McCain and Ron Paul have already signed up for the YouTube debate, but they’ll show up to anything.

But it’s not because the Republican candidates are afraid of YouTube or care as little about the Internets as they do about the NAACP (on the contrary, they love the tubes! They use the Google!). No, they just want to take it to the next level. So they had a full-out Internet Meme debate the other day on Spike TV. What I remember of the debate is disjointed and incomplete, considering I had just come home from a bleach drinking contest (First Prize, baby!).

There was a question from the Chuck Norris jokes section of the Internet that asked candidate Tommy Thompson “Since the leading causes of death in the United States are: 1. Heart Disease 2. Chuck Norris 3. Cancer, what is your health care plan to ensure that Chuck Norris becomes the number one killer of Americans instead of heart disease?” The congressman from Colorado gave a dull speech about his time as the head of Health and Human Services in the Bush Administration, but recovered nicely at the end by saying “But I’ll tell you what Chuck Norris and the rest of us don’t need, and that’s socialized medicine.”

There was a question from the Numa Numa guy about education or something, but Sam Brownback sidestepped the question and lamented the fact that our nation’s kids have to use foreign music for their lip-synching Internet videos. A wall on the Mexican border would fix this, said the Senator from Kansas.

Star Wars Kid had a question about US/Canadian relations, and Tom Tancredo one-upped Brownback by saying that after seeing the Star Wars Kid video there should be a wall on the Canadian border too and that English should be the official language of the United States, seeing how the Star Wars Kid is Canadian and from French-speaking Quebec province. He then made up some statistic about Canada being the world’s largest exporters of golfball retriever-weilding, khaki pant-wearing Sith Lords.

Ron Paul got asked a question from the All Your Base Are Belong to Us contingent asking about government waste. He replied that it is our government who has been saying All Your Money Are Belong to Us and that our entire federal government, especially the IRS, needs to be dramatically sliced down or eliminated… for great justice. John McCain called Ron Paul’s opposition to the Iraq war shortsighted and said that pulling out of Iraq will guarantee that someone will send us up the bomb.

Mitt Romney showed he was very unprepared for the Internet debate by not only confusing Myspace and YouTube but also telling the audience that he was glad Bill Cosby finally got a website at www.dailykos.com. The shrieking head pundits doing the post-debate rundown said that Fred Thompson wouldn’t have made that error, if he were actually running.

All questions from Nigerian millionaires looking to share their fortunes were ignored; however much attention was given to the penis-growth cream merchants.

The LOLCats had a bunch of questions for the candidates. Duncan Hunter didn’t understand most of them, but knew enough to sidestep the global warming and mass transit questions asked by Monorail Cat. Rudy Giuliani was able to shift seamlessly into LOLCat and l33t speak while answering questions on terrorism and Iraq, saying that because of 9/11 we’re in their base killing their doodz so that they do not come to our base and kill our doodz. And we are in Iraq so that we can bring hope to people who ask “I can has freedom?” Sam Brownback discussed border control and terrorism with his “I’m on ur border, keepin out ur immagrintz” plan. Tom Tancredo countered with his “I’m at ur airportz, profilin’ the mooslums” plan and added that unlike all the other candidates, he has a flavor.

Also Rudy Guiliani agreed with one questioner that U.S. foreign policy under his administration could be summed up four words: “I’m the Juggernaut, Bitch!“

The debate ended with a 105-question survey that each candidate had to fill out and send to seven other people or they would suffer seven years of bad luck.

Mike Huckabee could not attend the debate, as he was busy watching sleepy kitten videos and pwning noobs on World of Warcraft with his new vice-presidential candidate Leroy Jenkins.