Taking it to the streets before the debate

02 Oct, 2008 by Katie Favazza

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All eyes are on my hometown, St. Louis, Mo., today because of the vice-presidential debate tonight.

(For those of you in St. Louis for the event, head to Favazza’s restaurant if you’re looking for a great place to eat. Ask for Mark Favazza, my brother, and tell him you read about the place in a blog post by his sister.)

St. Louis Post-Dispatch reporter Adam Jadhav took to the streets to find out what people would ask Gov. Palin and Sen. Biden tonight if they had the chance–and made a video blog of the responses. It’s a nice little exercise in citizen-style journalism, but it can’t be taken as a good measure of everyday American attitudes. Jadhav didn’t go to any street, he went to Delmar, the main thoroughfare through a section of St. Louis that’s home to all things liberal. If you want a tattoo, the latest hemp product or the most under-rated indie album, you head to Delmar.

To be fair, Delmar is also home to Fitz’s delicious rootbeer and is the destination for anyone seeking the soul-healing powers of Chuck Berry. I’ve headed to the area for those very reasons myself. The point is that it’s not a logical hotspot to get a balanced read of opinions. Let’s hope the folks who have the privilege of attending the debate are more philosophically diverse than the people in the neighborhood surrounding Washington University.

Perhaps "takin’ it to the streets" should be left to Michael McDonald and the Doobie Brothers: