Ask the politicians what they don't want you to ask

For many of you, this election season will be your first real campaign. You're probably still at that stage in which you think politicians really have the public's best interests at heart. (Don't worry, you'll get over it.)

But regardless of your political coverage experience, you owe it to both yourself and the viewers to ask not only tough questions, but questions the politicians are probably not prepared to answer. Politicians are routinely prepped with stock answers to the common questions, the ones most likely to be asked. It's up to you to figure out what the candidate isn't prepared for, so that you get an answer that might offer some true insight. People want to elect real people, not robots who simply regurgitate answers formulated by their handlers.

I don't need to be a fly on the wall of the Obama or McCain campaigns to know that by the time the debate rolls around, both candidates will have prepped their answers on the economy, oil prices, Iraq, lobbyists, and a dozen other issues. Over the years, the best debate moments have come when a candidate rolls off the tracks into territory for which he or she is not prepared. (Gerald Ford on the subject of Poland is a classic example.)

So how do you come up with stuff that isn't covered in the campaign war rooms? Think simple.

Remember that scene in the 1992 campaign when George Bush (the first one) hadn't seen a supermarket checkout scanner? That spoke volumes about how "in touch" the man really was. Granted, we didn't expect the President to do his own grocery shopping, but stuff like that tells voters what kind of world politicians really live in.

Do Obama or McCain have any idea how much a gallon of milk costs? Do either of them know how to swipe a credit card and pump gas? Maybe they do, maybe they don't, but sometimes little stuff like that can tell you a lot about a politician.

So when you interview someone who is a "man or woman of the people" it is up to you to find out if the candidate really has his or her finger on the pulse of the voters, or is simply a puppet. Think of simple questions... stuff the average citizen could easily answer. Some of the answers might surprise you.