Last week, we saw the media splash that Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama made by announcing their candidacies on their Web sites.

This week, the Clinton camp asked Yahoo! Answers users “Based on your own family’s experience, what do you think we should do to improve health care in America?” Two days later, nearly 36,000 answers had been posted.

I’ve long been skeptical of Yahoo! Answers. Many of the questions are inane. e.g. “Would you rather have Flava Flav cook dinner for you or would you just eat dirt?” (Yes, that’s a real question from the site.) For factual questions, the answers are often incomplete or contradict one another.

The responses to Clinton’s question were a pleasant surprise. There are numerous personal stories about dealing with the American health care system. They are some of best thought out answers I’ve seen on the site.

Clinton is not the only politician looking for answers. India’s president, Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam, asked “What should we do to free our planet from terrorism?”