The Republicans have deigned to show up on Wednesday to answer questions "from you!" during the GOP CNN/YouTube debate. By Sunday's submission deadline, almost 5,000 questions had been submitted to YouTube, 2,000 more than the Democratic debate inspired. Among them, this one from Chris Dodd.

I'd love to see this question asked but I'd put the chances at slim to none, especially considering this NYTimes Caucus blog post about the question selection process.

Most questions online have been pulled from public viewing for review, but many of the remaining posts involve asking the candidates to defend their opposition to gay marriage and abortion. Those kinds of "lobbying grenades" would be disqualified by the CNN selection team, Mr. Bohrman said.

"There are quite a few things you might describe as Democratic `gotchas,' and we are weeding those out," Mr. Bohrman said. CNN wants to ensure that next Wednesday's Republican event is "a debate of their party."

As sad as it is, in the context of the modern GOP, I suspect a question about protecting the constitution would be seen as a "Democratic gotcha."

While I think the Democratic YouTube debate was one of the more enlightening of the debates so far, which isn't saying a whole lot, I have to agree with Marty Kaplan at HuffPo that

The notion that the CNN/YouTube debate represents a grass-roots triumph of the Internet age is laughable.

Kaplan rightly points to our friends at 10Questions.com for an example of a true grassroots effort to use the Internet to get the candidates to answer voters' questions directly. No gatekeepers, just you and the candidates. But will the candidates step up? So far, only Mike Huckabee has taken the time to directly respond to some of the top rated questions. Hopefully the Democrats will follow suit.