Opinion: MySpace and MTV partner for live candidate dialogues

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MySpace and MTV will announce in a few minutes a new partnership to provide American youths the chance to interact live and unfiltered with all major presidential candidates on television and on webTV.

The hour-long dialogues will begin Sept. 27 with former senator John Edwards in New Hampshire and run into December.

The sessions before live university audiences will also allow immediate interaction among at-home viewers of the webcast on MTV.com, MySpaceTV.com and MTV and mtvU. Viewers of those channels and websites will be able to submit questions via MySpace instant messaging, mobile devices and e-mail while viewer reactions are captured through live polling tools on both websites.

‘We are lowering the barriers to entry and setting a high-water mark for direct engagement between presidential candidates and average Americans,’ said Chris DeWolfe, co-founder and chief executive officer of MySpace.

The following candidates have already agreed to participate: Sam Brownback, Hillary Clinton, Chris Dodd, Rudy Giuliani, Duncan Hunter, John McCain, Barack Obama, Ron Paul, Bill Richardson and Mitt Romney.

Anyone over the age of 19 who can understand what all this means will also be allowed to watch, if they can convince some child to do all the settings for them.

--Andrew Malcolm