Will YouTube democratize politics or destroy it? That's the question The New Republic's Ryan Lizza explores in a Sunday New York Times article about the website's growing role in political campaigns.

While most of YouTube's 20 million monthly visitors watch video clips consisting of entertainment, sports or amateur diaries, the site is also becoming an indispensable source of political footage, both from official campaigns and grassroots activists.

Lizza focuses on the recent video-driven scandal involving Virginia Senator George Allen, who called a "college student of Indian descent a 'macaca,' an obscure racial slur," from the stage of a recent event. A clip of the incident "rocketed to the top" of [YouTube's] most-viewed list," enabling viewers to judge the comment and context for themselves, while also stoking print and broadcast media coverage.

Lizza concludes that Allen's "experience serves as a warning to politicians: Beware, the next stupid thing you say may be on YouTube," and he quotes political operatives lamenting how the site could be a pain for their bosses. The operatives' concerns include a lack of "standards," reducing the richness of "political discourse," and politicians' feeling like they "are on live TV all the time." On the plus side, some operatives noted the rise of YouTube could increase "directness and honesty" among politicians and advance the "democratization of information."

It's not surprising that political aides are wary of user-driven technology, since it might force new information and scrutiny on conventional campaigns. Campaigns aim to deliver a message through several mediums, and campaign managers prefer top-down mediums that they can control or influence. YouTube is a bottom-up medium. Now millions of people with Internet and video equipment have a mass communication platform, which they can use to disseminate images or ideas that contradict a campaign's message.

That probably worries political professionals more than adversarial bloggers, for the same reason TV attack ads are more significant than critical op-eds. Visceral videos are usually more persuasive than words. The potential message democratization probably worries political operatives even more than the high-minded costs that some them mentioned to Lizza, such as campaign "standards" and "political discourse."

While Lizza questions whether YouTube politics will push candidates further "into a scripted bubble," he does not cite any examples that demonstrate such a risk. Instead, he focuses on Senator Allen's racist gaffe, which was made from the podium of a public event. Voters are supposed to judge candidates' by their public statements, so there is no question about the use of video from the event. The more problematic question is whether YouTube would disseminate political videos recorded in murkier territory, such as videos of candidates in situations that reasonable people consider private. (The site has detailed policies on user submissions here.) Yet in the high-profile examples to date, there is clearly more democratization than destruction on YouTube.