An event billed as the dawn of a new age of internet politics left Democratic presidential candidates looking a little old and often bleared-eyed, last night.

The CNN-YouTube debate, in which for the first time questions were posed in videos posted online by ordinary Americans, opened with Zach Kempf from Provo, Utah, saying: "Wassup?"

He asked: "Beyond all the platitudes and stuff we're used to hearing, I mean, be honest with us, how're you gonna be any different?"

Christopher Dodd, a no-hope candidate with scarcely 1 per cent support in the polls, was given the honour of replying.

"Certainly, I think it's a very important question one ought to be answering," he said, before retreating into some instantly forgettable talking points about his 26 years experience in the Senate.

A couple of questions later it was the turn of Hillary Clinton, the frontrunner in the race. Would she describe herself as a liberal? She preferred to be called "progressive".

So, she does not want to be called a liberal? Mrs Clinton, mindful of the risks of giving too direct an answer about a word which has become a term of abuse for Middle America, merely nodded.

CNN had insisted on selecting which of the 2,000-plus video would be screened, much to the chagrin of believers in the "user-generated content" of internet democracy. But many of the questions still had a freshness and directness lacking from traditional presidential debates.

Personal testimony came from parents of troops serving in Iraq and a woman cancer patient who whipped off her wig to show the effects of chemotherapy.

There were also videos from red-neck comedians, a falsetto-voiced snowman worried about global warming, a woman in her bathroom, a man with a guitar who wanted help with his parking ticket and another brandishing a huge assault rifle which he referred to as his "baby".

The last of these as too much for Senator Joe Biden, who suggested the gun-man "needed help". But the funnier videos were generally greeted with long-toothed frozen smiles from the eight candidates on show, who sought to enter into the YouTube spirit by presenting their own 30-second videos either side of advertisement breaks.

Mr Dodd's featured a long-eared white rabbit in an apparent reference to his grey hair and 26 years' experience in the Senate.

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