An experimental online "mashup" — a build-your-own Democratic presidential debate — attracted more than 1 million viewers in the past 10 days, many of them young people drawn to the interactivity of the Internet.But the most popular participant was not a candidate.
Comedian Bill Maher, who asked one of four questions posed to each of the eight candidates, attracted viewers 42% of the time. He quizzed the hopefuls about the Ten Commandments, marijuana legalization, the relative dangers of sugar, coal dust and terrorism, and the climate-changing impact of cows.
Yahoo, HuffingtonPost.com and Slate.com conceived the format as a way to give online viewers the ability to build a debate with video blocks of each candidate answering different questions on education, health care and the Iraq war from Public Broadcasting Service host Charlie Rose. A "wild-card" question came from Maher.
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