Politicians running for the most powerful and important elected offices have, for too long, gotten away with platitudes, generalities and tired, old sound bites. Do you have a question you have been yearning to ask a politician? Do you want answers from California gubernatorial candidates Jerry Brown or Meg Whitman? What about US Senate candidates Carly Fiorina or Barbara Boxer? If you have a question you wanted answered, here is your chance. 10Questions.com is a new digital project supported by the Personal Democracy Forum which aims to take political discourse to the next level technologically — and voters ought to participate en masse.
10questions.com is an online experiment to get candidates in 46 of the top political races in the nation to answer 10 tough questions selected by regular people. Anyone can post a question — via text or video — on 10questions.com that they want candidates to answer. Once questions are posted, website visitors vote on the questions to which they would most like to see candidates respond. The top ten vote getters will be asked to the candidates. Every race will have a separate set of questions. Each candidate will respond by video on YouTube.com. Two statewide races have been selected to participate in the Golden State; the gubernatorial and senate contests. Meg Whitman, Carly Fiorina and Barbara Boxer have all agreed to participate. Jerry Brown is the only candidate that has yet to commit, but if enough Californians chime in, Brown would be reminisced not to participate.
The midterm elections this year are momentously consequential and the outcomes will have global reverberations that speak to the core political philosophy of the country and signal the direction of the country for years to come.
This year, perhaps more than ever, citizen engagement in the electoral process is crucial and one of the best ways to engage is by getting the toughest questions answered by those seeking to tackle the biggest challenges facing the state and the nation. 10questions.com needs questions submitted by September 21. This is your opportunity to demand answers.
Brian Calle is an opinion columnist and editorial writer for the Orange County Register. He blogs at ocregister.com/orangepunch and freedompolitics.com.