Over 90,000 Americans submitted questions for President Barack Obama’s online town hall meeting, which took place this at 11:30 a.m. EST this morning.
The townhall, which could be viewed at WhiteHouse.gov, featured the questions voted most popular by online participants as well as a few video questions. Voting ended two hours prior to the event.
According to the White House, 92,927 people submitted 104,126 questions and cast 3,606,824 total votes.
However, Obama didn’t stick to the pre-determined format of answering the questions with the most votes, after online groups adovcating the legalization of marijuana pushed question
s about the topic to the top of the green jobs, financial stability, jobs and budget questions lists.
In response to the multiple questions surrounding the legalization of marijuana, Obama said he would not support changing federal drug law that makes possession of marijuana a crime.
While the ability of an interest group to hijack the voting methodology shows one of the method’s downfalls, the use of online questioning was a revolutionary step in the use of new media in the White House.
In the Youtube video announcing the online townhall, Obama said, “We’re going to take advantage of the Internet to bring all of you to the White House to talk about the economy.”
But Obama’s use of the internet goes far beyond this morning’s online forum.
Following his inauguration, Obama unveiled a largely revamped White House website, featuring more user-friendly content. Site features include a weekly video address from the president, as well as its sister-site Recovery.gov, which tracks how stimulus money is being spent.
In February, the White House announced it’s internet team, which consists of Macon Phillips, Director of New Media for the White House; Cammie Croft, Deputy Director of New Media; Katie Stanton, Director of Citizen Participation and Jesse Lee, Online Programs Director.
Other features of the new White House site include a photo gallery displayed across the top of page, e-mail updates, and a White House blog.
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This is unfounded BS “While the ability of an interest group to hijack the voting methodology shows one of the method’s downfalls”. Obviously a majority wanted a serious answer the the question of legalization of marijuana. No one “hijacked” anything, the president chose to trivialize the question and that was unfortunate.
March 30, 2009 at 4:22 pmI respect Obama he is a talented politician, President Obama seems to posse’s insightful, reasonable judgment on many issues, although in the case of marijuana prohibition laws I find Obama’s choice to answer with mocking humor to be lacking. Smoking marijuana is an easy thing to laugh about, it seems there is something about being stoned that brings a smile to people’s faces, however marijuana prohibition is not a joke. We should not be making jokes as millions of Americans are arrested for being caught on the wrong side of moral politicking, we should not laugh as we spend over 30 billion dollars a year going after Americans for smoking weed, we should not giggle and poke fun as we watch billions of dollars in tax revenue slip through our fingers each year, and should we not be jolly as thousands of people are murdered by cartels profiting from America’s moral hypocrisy. I believe there are profound latent consequences in prohibition that are not even factored in to our assessments of the effects of illegality, such as how we view the rule of law and the role of law enforcement in the community, the divisiveness between users and non users, the stigma of mental shock of incarceration. I say pot prohibition is no joke it has real costs paid for in real lives. Freedom is achieved in a country by placing responsibility in the hands of the citizen and not by the state legally enforcing morality.
March 30, 2009 at 6:04 pmSunflowerPipes.com
Obama is so great on it's first 100 days on white house
June 25, 2009 at 8:45 amThis is quite impressive, I am pleased to read this post, keep posts like this coming,
you totally rock!
July 26, 2009 at 4:14 amCheers,
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