I’m pleased to report that, according to John Odum, it’s official…

On Monday, August 28th at 12:00 noon, Green Mountain Daily will host Vermont’s first online political candidate debate between the Democratic primary candidates for Lieutenant Governor, Representative John Patrick Tracy of Burlington and Senator Matt Dunne of Hartland. The debate will be held in a live chat room linked from the GMD front page, with comments from viewers in a parallel live-blogging thread.

Yours truly will be moderating, and GMD front pagers Jack McCullough and Vermonter will be on site with the candidates for the duration of the debate.

Details on the format and updates will be forthcoming between now and the 28th. As you can imagine, we’re pretty excited. Mark your calendars and bring a bag lunch to work!

The real question is whether I’ll be able to detect Dunne or Tracy secretly employing government technology in order to magically insert campaign-approved talking points into the open-source chat software.

But, never fear, I will be vigilant!