Latino Blogger

I have been playing around with the Yahoo/Huffington Post/Slate presidential debate “mashup” site and I can tell you that it is not for the weak of heart.

The debate has been billed as “the first-ever online-only presidential mashup“.

The raw footage from the online debate in which Charlie Rose and Bill Maher ask the candidates questions on the usual topics has now been uploaded by Yahoo to its own web-based video editing service Jumpcut.

By login into this service one can “grab” the different videos and “splice and dice” the footage to create your own mashup.

According to Yahoo’s spokesman Brian Nelson,

“Users will be able to create their own mashups and post the footage onto their websites afterwards — that’s for the hardcore fans who want to engage with this video”.

And you have to be a “hardcore fan” to go through the entire process of grabbing, remixing and publishing a video because the interface is not very intuitive and the instructions are hard to find and follow.

It took me a while to put together this mashup where John Edwards, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton give their views of the insurance and drug industries lobbies’ roles in the creation of a new universal healthcare system.

I am sure that I have not yet scratched the surface regarding the potential of this new online video editing tool but I have to admit that despite all the problems it is pretty cool.

Today is the day! The Democratic presidential candidates get together at the University of Miami in a debate that will be broadcast in Spanish by Univision.

Although the questions will be translated to English and the candidates will answer also in English, it is expected that millions of Spanish-speaking viewers around the country will have a unique opportunity to see the candidates address issues of great importance to the Latino community.

And we plan to follow the debate very closely.

In fact, we (Los Blogueros) plan to open a Skypecast room and a chatroom during the debate in the hope that you will join us there to have an open conversation about the candidates and how they propose to address the issues that affect the Latino community.

There will also be a live audio stream of our Skypecast in case you do not use Skype (although I encourage you to download it at www.skype.com – it is free, easy to use and a very powerful tool for communicating with people around the world).

In any event, you can always use the chatroom if you do not have Skype.

So here it is:

Today Sunday Sept 9, 2007, at 7PM EST.

We will speak Spanish or English or Spanglish…..in fact, we will speak the three languages.

You can watch the debate online in Univision.

Join us in this Skypecast.

This is where we will Chat (no registration needed, just chat on).

And you can also listen to the Live Audio streaming of the Skypecast

We hope you can make it.

See you there!

Update: We will also be updating news of the debate via Twitter: www.twitter.com/eleccion2008

Definitely a Gore-Obama ticket is a very interesting possiblity that I have been thinking about for some time.

An intelligent and principled president with ample domestic and international experience working alongside one of the best progressive young leaders of our generation. Just what we need to get us out of the mess we are in and back into being a real and civilized democracy

This fun video was made by The Young Turks.

This is the question that lingers in many people’s minds after hearing the pro-deportation statement made by her chief of staff Terry McAuliffe on a radio show.

This statement has caused major concern among many Hispanics who were considering Hillary Clinton as one of the potential favorites on the Democratic side for the 2008 presidential elections.

McAuliffe claims that his position is identical to that of the Clintons. Considering that most Hispanics rejected the Republicans in the past elections precisely because of this extreme position, Clinton and other Democrats may want to reconsider whether this is the face they want to present to the Hispanic electorate.

Most Americans support an immigration reform that includes a path to citizenship and reject pro-deportation policies that will tear apart families and cause enormous suffering to many immigrants and their families.

Is this really what Hillary stands for?

Hispanics around the country want to know before anyone will commit to supporting her candidacy.