November 2, 2012

2012 Presidential Debates on Video & Audio

We’ll feature a few more audio & video essentials for this close presidential election. We’ll start off with the presidential debates. We link to all of the available debates to stream on YouTube (and the ones we link to are available in HD video), and we link to the audio on National Public Radio which you can download on MP3 for each debate.

2012 First Presidential Debate: Obama vs. Romney (10/03/12) (on domestic issues)

2012 Second Presidential Debate: Obama vs. Romney (10/16/12) (mostly on domestic issues)

2012 Third Presidential Debate: Obama vs. Romney (10/22/12) (on foreign policy)

2012 Vice Presidential Debate: Biden vs. Ryan (10/11/12)

And if you’re interested in some other opinions from political voices outside the two party system, we recommend the 2012 Third Party Presidential Debate moderated by Larry King and featuring Libertarian Party candidate Gary Johnson, Green Party candidate Jill Stein, Constitution Party candidate Virgil Goode, & Justice Party candidate Rocky Anderson:

2012 Third Party Presidential Debate (10/23/12)

In case you had missed the major speeches at the Democratic National Convention or at the Republican National Convention, C-SPAN put together a good YouTube playlist featuring the acceptance speeches of Barack Obama and Mitt Romney, along with the speeches of Paul Ryan, Joe Biden, Bill Clinton, Clint Eastwood, Michelle Obama, and Gov. Chris Christie. You can access these speeches here:

2012 Political Conventions Major Speeches

And finally if you want to get beyond the talking points of the candidates we recommend the PBS Frontline documentary:

Frontline: The Choice 2012

Each presidential election year PBS produces the Frontline documentary “The Choice”. It premiered a few weeks ago and you can now watch the 2-hour documentary “The Choice 2012” on YouTube. This documentary goes beyond the talking points of Barack Obama and Mitt Romney, and looks at their biographies in order to discover what drives them and informs their decisions. The documentary goes back to the upbringing of both candidates and follows them through their rise in politics and some of their more recent political struggles. It’s a good look at Obama and Romney with insightful interviews from some of the people that have been closest to them. Enjoy this free documentary.

PBS has also posted the audio of “The Choice 2012” on their Frontline audio podcast if you’d like to check it out that way:

Frontline Audiocast – PBS Podcast

And with that we’ll remind you to be sure to get out and vote Tuesday, November 6th!

Now a quote from Plato: “One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors.”