Hilary Clinton Uses Yahoo Answers

Two days ago, Hilary Clinton posted a question to Yahoo Answers:

“Based on your own family’s experience, what do you think we should do to improve health care in America?”

This is amazing on several levels.

One, Clinton is actually asking the American people what they think, rather than assuming or generalizing from the party she’s a part of. (this doesn’t mean she’ll listen, but it’s a start)

Two, Clinton is using Yahoo Answers, a publicly-accessible social software app to ask the question. In the past year Yahoo Answers has been a runaway success for Yahoo, racking up millions of users.

Three, in just two days there are over 35,000 answers!.

As Loren Baker points out, this type of content is hugely important. It’s a record of the public’s view on a question in free-form, going way beyond an black and white vote. Many of the answers that I have read so far are pretty solid: passionate and reasonable answers to the question.

Is this is an indicator of another level of political discourse going forward?