YouTube brings life, weirdness to election

Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero delivers a speech during a pre-electoral rally in Guadalajara, central Spain, February 19, 2008.

MADRID (Reuters) - If it weren't for YouTube, a man wearing a little black dress and a pearl necklace would be unlikely to get a question in for the leader of the Spanish opposition.

Hundreds of Spaniards have lodged YouTube questions for the two main candidates in a parliamentary election on March 9, addressing issues ranging from pensions and workers' rights to gay marriage and the environment.

The format has already been rehearsed in the United States, where a YouTube debate between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton was praised for its spontaneity.

But so far, Socialist Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero has limited any possible embarrassing moments by responding to only a handful of relatively tame clips picked by Spanish television.

One woman wanted to know how he could guarantee public services while cutting taxes, and a man complained about the lack of job security for Spanish workers.

Zapatero responded to each with ease.

If the idea was to force politicians to address the needs of ordinary people by shaking them from their usual scripts, it did not work.

More offbeat offerings lurk on YouTube's Spanish election site, including one from a transvestite in a black dress who was indignant about conservative opposition leader Mariano Rajoy's distaste for gay marriage.

On another video, a man berated the prime minister over a corruption case in central Spain.

"Mr Zapatero, how much is an honest citizen worth to you? Zero," he said.

Despite YouTube's novelty and oddity, its political power is still untried here, with major parties devoting most of their resources to traditional media rather than the Internet.

Google Chairman Eric Schmidt says the Internet will be decisive in future elections but hasn't been yet; although in Australia there were short-lived fears of damage to the Labor Party's Kevin Rudd's career after a clip on YouTube showed him in a poor light.

But while thousands of Australians downloaded the footage of Rudd extracting, examining and then apparently consuming earwax, they elected him prime minister anyway.

(Reporting by Jason Webb)