resident Obama, you’ve said that your administration is shifting the War on Drugs. What is your plan to address racial disparities in drug-related incarceration? 
Our readers have the opportunity to submit a question like this or whatever they choose. Dominion of New York is one of three U.S. news organizations chosen to collaborate with the Guardian on a project to identify the three questions that our community of readers would like the candidates to answer. The project is part of the Guardian US and NYU’s Studio 20 ‘Citizen Agenda’ project, which is a joint effort to learn what voters want the presidential candidates to be discussing as the 2012 election approaches. The Guardian US is the US edition of the global news brand, the Guardian. Big ups to reader, contributor and NYU graduate school student Patrice Peck for orchestrating this opportunity for our community.
For the next 6 days, we’ll be collecting questions from you, our readers, and inviting you to participate in community conversations. You can leave your questions for the candidates in the comment section below right now. But you can also spearhead some community conversations to help us collect the questions.
Here’s how it will work: Every day at 12 pm wherever you are, share this article with your social media audience and ask them to leave you their questions. After the conversation, collect the ones you believe are the most insightful and post them in the comment section below.
When the collection period ends, Friday, May 11 at 7 pm, we’ll narrow the questions down. To select the top 3 questions, we’ll conduct a poll on our website and on our Facebook page Saturday, May 12.
To help us track participation, please let us know whether you will do it too. I’m looking forward to learning more about you and your concerns.
Yes, I will lead a community conversation.
Cynthia Liu is CEO/Founder of K12NewsNetwork.com, an education news and advocacy social venture providing a local news platform and social action community in support of America’s public schools. The project is supported by a grant from the Ford Foundation. @K12NN on Twitter, http://facebook.com/k12nn
Renea Henry is a multimedia journalist and editor, originally from New Orleans, currently covering hyperlocal news in the suburbs of New York City. She has a keen interest in pop culture and politics, especially related to African American culture and national issues, and loves to get people thinking and talking.
Barrington Edwards is an educator and writer who resides in South Orange, NJ. A former professor and college dean, Barrington came to the NYC area to write and teach, his first loves. For the past decade or so, he has worked and traveled all over the country, including a brief stint abroad in South Korea. He writes about race, science, education, sexuality and contemporary politics. He currently teaches history at an independent school in New Jersey.
James Braxton Peterson James Braxton Peterson (Duke ’93, UPENN 2003) is the Director of Africana Studies and Associate Professor of English at Lehigh University. He has appeared on CNN, Fox News, CBS News, MSNBC, ABC News, ESPN, HLN, and various local television networks as an expert on popular culture, urban youth and politics.
Josh Kellar received a PhD in materials science and engineering from Northwestern University where he studied nanotechnology. Prior to graduate school, he worked for the Federation of American Scientists where he worked on strategic security issues, primarily related to nuclear security. He currently works as a management consultant at the Boston Consulting Group, providing strategic advice to clients in industry and government. In addition to scientific and policy publications, he is also a published poet.
Shawn Taylor lives in the San Francisco Bay Area. He writes, speaks, and teaches on media, culture, and propaganda at various colleges.
About the Author
What about the regulation of the mega banks?
1. Given the history of Gov Romney’s management of Bain Capital, how or what plan is he putting forth to decrease unemployment?
2. What is the Republican platform–or the de facto policy statement– dealing with undocumented persons?
3. Given the recent concern about the state of American education as preparation for being competitive on a world market, what is the Republican strategy for competing on the world stage?
4. How does Romney deal with the criticism that he is constantly shifting his “ideas”–that his ideas are like moving targets depending upon what is expedient politically?
5. What is Romney’s energy policy?
1) Not long after your election, you made several moves that set the tone for the first half of your term, including appointing several Clinton administration-era advisors like Lawrence Summers, Rahm Emmanuel and announcing that you would not pursue investigations against members of the Bush administration involved with catalyzing the Iraq and Afghan wars. In hindsight, do you think the choices you made during that period of transition before your Inauguration put you on strong footing or would you make different choices? Will you retain the current Cabinet if you are re-elected?
2) Many Progressives and Liberals were disappointed that you did not push for bolder legislative reform in your first term. They have criticized your administration for holding over many Bush era policies, especially related to Guantanamo Bay, and for not pushing for single-payer option health care reform. Was your relatively conservative position on these matters misunderstood by the left or were these political concessions borne of strategic necessity? Do you think you squandered a mandate? Or do you have a strategic vision that you can illuminate?
3) Have your Administrations’ economic policies been aggressive enough with regard to stimulating growth and employment? If so, when can Americans expect to see significant improvement in employment and wages?
4) Would you consider expanded government spending to stimulate the economy or do you believe the private sector is the primary engine for job growth?
5) Many Americans have forgotten about Hurricane Katrina and the Clearwater Horizon spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Does your administration have any specific strategies for addressing wetlands conservation, infrastructure reinvestment and environmental protection in the Gulf Coast region?
6) Would your Administration consider any Main Street level stimulus strategies? Bush sent taxpayers individual stimulus refunds to catalyze spending after 9/11. Would you ever consider student loan or mortgage debt relief to alleviate the financial woes of middle-class Americans?
These are questions for President Obama.
1.Why were you so compromising during your first term, when it was obvious that the other party was not in a compromising mood?
2. Are the successes with drone strikes enough to offset the loss of innocent life?
3. If you get a second term, will you actually put some skin in the game, or will you be the “Great Compromiser” for another four years?
4. What are your real/true/only can talk about them when I’m out of office feelings around how your race (and other’s reactions to it) affected your presidency?
5. Do you feel that you have done enough to create the world that you want your daughters to grow up in?
1. With the most challenging problems this nation faces increasingly requiring tough choices, how will you rally an increasingly divided congress to make those choices?
2. What is your plan to rein in health care costs while also ensuring Americans receive the best quality care possible?
3. How do you intend to move the United States off of the fossil fuels that are contributing to climate change when we remain in a recession?
From a Facebook friend:
When and how will you make America’s job situation better?
Can we get the jobs back from overseas and bring manufacturing back to America?
Would you be willing to advance our society into a morally superior place to live (ex.ban abortion,allow prayer in schools, etc.)?
When can you get gas prices below $2.00/gallon; supply better, healthier food with prices; programs online that allow free college degrees?
America is suffering for real though. CNN and FOX have it all wrong. I have never been polled or called and they claim the majority of Americans feel a certain way or that the latest reports show Americans are back to work. It is bull.
Thank you Ashley!
From a pal:
“@DeuceDeuxDos: @ashleycisneros on a personal level:what are you going to do about Cuba? On a national level:how are you going to make more jobs available?”
Questions received from readers thus far:
(1) How do we reduce our culture’s tendency to resort to violence to resolve issues?
(2) What is the plan to address the black unemployment gap versus the mainstream population?
(3) How do we truly become a post-racial country?
I have a lot that I would ask. Here are two groups of questions:
(1) What are your plans for the prisoners at Guantamano Bay and Bagram Prison? Do you plan to hold any of them indefinitely without trial or hearing? If not, what is the time frame for hearings? These individuals may have committed (war)crimes, but can we rightly hold them indefinitely without hearings?
(2) What are your plans for reducing unemployment, including specifically black unemployment? Would you use targeted government spending to create jobs? If so, what programs would you support and in what sectors would you focus?