I thought that I would give you a little report on my progress with the Ten Questions for the Dean and Clark campaigns.
Man, this political reporting thing is harder than it looks... first off, many calls, etc. are dead ends, voice mail hell, etc. I should get paid for this... at least I am doing the job and I haven't attended one journalism class!?!
I want everybody to know that for reporters to 'get it right' is something that deserves respect. It is hard, frustrating work... I now have some (small) personal experience.
As for the people like Tiny-brain Tim Russert, Nasty Nedra, and Bob Novak the Traitor, who are just media whores, well, they are lazy and unpatriotic. I don't know why they don't love America the Beautiful enough to do their jobs and get, and then tell the whole unbiased truth.
However, I was able, by persistence, and a little bluster, to reach both campaigns and get an email address to submit the ten questions.
Both campaigns know they are getting the same questions. Both campaigns know that the other campaign has the same questions. I am submitting them to the email address I was given (and I confirmed) at the same time.
Let's see 'who loves ya, baby'? Who is really paying attention to the Dem 'Net Roots'? Who really 'gets' the web and KOS?
What are the Questions? Well, when I posted them here, it was right after I sent them out to the campaigns. And what you read here is what I sent them.
Click for more.
Ten Kos Questions of Dean and Clark
Disclaimer: I am an early Dean contributor and backer. I welcomed Clark into the race and I am still interested in him. I have pretty much stopped paying attention to the other Dem candidates.
Here's what I did. The very first question and many others were meant for both candidates, so I got to thinking that I should ask them both the same questions. I summarized many of the questions down to the question only. I tried to make the questions as simple as possible. Many of the questions were very similar and so I tried to get the flavor of each question as I imagined a 'swing' Dem activist would ask. In two months or so, we will need to unite around the Dem Nominee so I was not interested in being a Nasty Nedra.
I ranked the questions with the 'wonkiest' ones at the bottom and cut off at 9. The 10th question is mine. In fairness to both campaigns, I am trying not to ask questions that can't be answered well in the rush of the campaign season. In other words, the candidates are busy now (something about caucuses and primaries) and can't stop the presses and gather a policy team to answer some of the deepest policy questions.
I guess to some degree we all get down to taking the measure of the candidates in our hearts and minds and then ask ourselves who we will entrust our country to for the next four years.
For those of you who feel my gathered and summarized questions are too much like slow-pitch softball, please note I did not ask about sweaters, galoshes or earth-tones. So I am doing better than the media is generally... and I have never interviewed a political figure in my life.
However, we can hold on to our other questions for after Super-Tuesday. Both campaigns liked the idea of a KOS interview. And somebody at both campaigns knew what a blog is. My accent threw one person off, but that was me.
So now, the envelope please...
QUESTIONS to BOTH Howard Dean and Wes Clark campaigns:
- What will the US role be in the Israel-Palestine Peace process with you as President?
- How would you propose to make the U.S. Government more open, transparent, and answerable to We the People?
- How would you reduce corruption in government and the private sector?
- What are your top 5 actions to reduce terrorism in the US?
- How will you deal with the possibility of Republican control of House and/or Senate?
- Can you point to some action in your campaign to help to regain Democratic control of the House or Senate?
- Under what general conditions would you advocate using military force?
- How would you re-prioritize expenditures at the Pentagon? Would you shift funds in any way?
- Before you started campaigning for president, did you do any family grocery shopping? If so, where?
- Please tell us a personal story about what made you decide to run for president?