• Reuters, Thursday, March 1, 2007 10:30 AM

Democratic Presidential hopefuls Barack Obama, John Edwards, Hillary Clinton and Bill Richardson and Republicans Rudy Giuliani, Mitt Romney and John McCain have all bought video channels on YouTube, where they can post video of themselves. Members of YouTube will be able to post a video response or asks questions of each candidate, who gets the final say on what appears on their channel.

The degree of control offered by the Web channels is a way for the 2008 hopefuls to circumvent the problems that plagued their peers ahead of last year's election. The oft-cited "macaca" incident, in which Rep. Senator George Allen used the racial slur to refer to a rival's Indian-American staff member, resulted in a flurry of bad press for Allen, which may have helped cost him reelection.

YouTube, of course, hopes candidates will be as open as possible with their video channels. "I think the politicians will be better served by letting the dialogue with the public take over," said Jordan Hoffner, YouTube director of content partnerships. "Our users are very smart and savvy, and they can see through something if it's not genuine."

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