Candidate stump speeches from Blockbuster and consolidated debating forums on the Internet are in many ways natural complements to each other.

Video stump speeches can convey what each candidate regards as his central anchoring vision, amid all the hubbub of charge and countercharge in a complex, multi-issue race.   They can also provide important human cues to the personality of the candidate.  There's something about seeing and hearing a person express himself personally that gives us a sense of him that no amount of reading his staff-written position papers can.

At the same time, a consolidated candidates’ forum on the Internet can provide an effective counterbalance to video stump speeches.  For example, what if a candidate claimed something in his video stump speech that was blatantly untrue?  The Internet forum would give the other candidates a chance to effectively challenge it long after it had been committed to videotape.

After one or two examples of a candidate being hounded for the remainder of a campaign about a false statement in his video stump speech, other candidates would probably learn to be very careful indeed about what they committed to tape.