This Monday marks the first time that UGC (user-generated content) will be used to ask questions in a political debate.  Videos have been submitted via YouTube and the questions will be edited and selected by CNN.

This begs the question if this will be any different then any other debate.  The questions will probably not be the true questions that popular America wants to have answered but rather a water-down, edited version.  Instead of using the web as a submission tool for questions, wouldn’t it be better utilized as a voting tool to determine the most pressing issues?  That way instead of having a 3rd party like CNN pick the questions, questions are asked based on popular vote.

Going a step further, all the candidates responses to the questions should be posted online as well where they can be shared via websites like YouTube and rated by users.  It would be great to see how America rates the candidates responses versus the political “experts”.