This afternoon, MTV announced that on Saturday, February 2nd, Hillary Clinton and Mike Huckabee will both participate in the ongoing MTV/MySpace Candidate Dialogues. Billed as a "Super-Dialogue," the event will offer any candidate polling with at least 10% support to address the MTV/MySpace audience, however only Clinton and Huckabe have accepted thus far.
If you've read my previous pieces on these candidate dialogues, then you know I think they are the most impressive use of the social web this cycle in creating real interaction between the public and the candidates. Their use of live-polling, unscripted questions, and on-line audience feedback represent the most dynamic public forum on the campaign trail. They are to the much-touted CNN/YouTube forums what CNN/YouTube is to traditional broadcast debates.
Originally, MTV and MySpace planned to air individual dialogues with all the candidates on the trail before the Iowa Caucus. That didn't work as planned, and only John McCain, John Edwards, and Barack Obama participated before the Hawkeye state cast their votes. Now, with February 5th - Super (Fat) Tuesday - approaching, Clinton and Huckabee will get their chance to address the nation's young voters.
Clinton is looking to eat away at Obama's base, as she did in New Hampshire. If she can capture enough of the youth vote, she could cripple Obama in the race for delegates. Huckabee, who won the youth vote in evangelical-heavy Iowa and South Carolina, is looking to do much the same: keep up his lead among young evangelicals, and prevent McCain or Romney from gaining ground among youth.
The program will air:
The event will be here in NYC, so (assuming there is WiFi) I'll be live-blogging from the studio audience.