DURHAM, N.H. – Nobody really knows exactly what will happen at noon at the MySpace MTV Presidential forum with John Edwards; the plan is for questions to come in from MySpace users; the candidate will respond, and while he’s responding, MySpace users will vote on the quality of the answer. Depending on the users’ satisfaction as reflected in that instant poll, Edwards will have a chance to revise or extend his answer.

That’s the way it’s supposed to work. At a breakfast meeting with MySpace event coordinators, fears of a coordinated effort to skew the results were downplayed. “You could do it if there was a pool of five hundred,” organizers said, but they felt confident the pool of MySpace users participating would overwhelm any effort to skew the results.

I wonder if the organizers have heard of the term “Freeping” a poll, and just how many Freepers are out there, or Kos readers, or diehard antiwar folks, or Ron Paul supporters, or any other faction that might want to rave or rail against a candidate’s answer. In a way, Edwards might be wise to do the first event (MySpace says they have commitments from every major candidate except Fred Thompson) before other campaigns catch on and mobilize their online supporters.

On paper, this looks like a fascinating attempt to derail candidates who revert to banalities or talking points when hit with a tough question. But maybe they’ll respond to a negative response to banalities with more banalities. There’s a nice walking-a-tightrope-without-a-net atmosphere here at the sweltering University of New Hampshire field house.