Do you know why California Senate candidate Carly Fiorina opposes legalizing and taxing marijuana (i.e. "Proposition 19")? Because she says government shouldn't have any more sources of revenue. "Sending billions of dollars in tax revenue to Sacramento is exactly the problem," she says.
Now, you won't find that on any television commercials or cable newscasts. In the modern political world, candidate platforms are commonly reduced to simple sound bites that media outlets play repeatedly until the candidate and the sound bite become interchangeable in our minds. As candidates and campaigns strive to encapsulate their persona in a simple brand image, we face a serious problem of having a lack of access to the substantive answers to the questions that matter most to the electorate.
To counter this, 10Questions.com gathered over one thousand questions from the public and then delivered the top 10 unique questions for each race to the candidates in 43 of the most competitive House, Senate, and gubernatorial races across the country. By forcing the candidates to address the issues that are most compelling to the voters, 10Questions.com pushes the candidates out of their branded sound bite comfort zone and provides the voters with substantive answers to the questions that are most important to them. By providing voter questions to the candidates that they must address directly, 10Questions.com is bringing local town hall style politics to a much broader audience on the internet.
The particularly competitive California Senate race is one of the many races covered on 10Questions.com. Senator Barbara Boxer and Republican challenger Carly Fiorina take different stances on many issues, which 10Questions.com clearly and succinctly brings to light. The candidates take a definitive stance on such issues as gay marriage, Don't Ask Don't Tell, the war in Afghanistan, California's controversial Proposition 19 to legalize marijuana, and net neutrality. Interestingly, Fiorina's opposition to Proposition 19 is not based on health or morality concerns, but instead is based on a distaste for creating billions of dollars of tax revenue that would be, in the candidate's opinion, put to waste by the inefficient legislature in Sacramento. Other races of particular interest being covered on 10Questions include the Arizona Governor's race, where the candidates offer their opinions on Arizona's contentious new immigration laws, as well as the Pennsylvania Senate race, where the seat held by Arlen Specter since 1980 is up for grabs to two relative political newcomers.
10Questions.com offers voters succinct yet substantive answers to the most pressing questions facing our local and national communities. By forcing the candidates to stray from their platform based sound bite messages, 10Questions.com allows the electorate to become truly informed on the issues. Check out a couple of the more interesting responses here, including Fiorina's full answer on Prop 19, and Arizona governor Jan Brewer answering the same question she flubbed in a televised debate.