Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton's latest N.C. Ask Me ad focuses on the federal government's responsibilities towards veterans.

Four women leaders will tour North Carolina on behalf of Hillary Clinton today.

Rev. Marcia Dyson, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania; Irene Natividad, president of the Global Summit for Women; Kim Gandy, president of the National Organization for Women; and Betsy Ebeling, a longtime friend of Clinton's, will meet with women at campaign field offices in Charlotte, Winston-Salem and Greensboro.

Invitations have gone out to women who submitted questions through Clinton's N.C. Ask Me Web site.

The group will also hold a "Hillary Hour" at 518 West Italian restaurant in Raleigh at 5 p.m.

Hillary Clinton has answered the first question at NCAskMe.com.

As part of a North Carolina ad campaign, the Democratic presidential candidate asked residents to pose their questions for her to answer on TV.

The first question selected was by Tammie Bright, 40, of Cherryville. A mother of three, she makes truck parts for a living, according to the Clinton campaign.

She asked, "What are your plans on reducing the rising cost of gas?"

In her 60-second response, Clinton says that she would promote alternative energy, invest in research and encourage the manufacture of hybrid vehicles.

The Clinton campaign said it received nearly 10,000 questions through the Web site, and staffers and volunteers are calling back each person.

Incidentally, the only Tammie Bright registered to vote in Cherryville is a Republican.

Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are taking different tacks on voter drives.

Obama is running a traditional voter drive to sign up new voters by Friday's deadline, followed by a push on one-stop voting between April 17 and May 3.

Clinton is waiting to focus on one-stop voting.

One reason for the difference could be the types of voters each campaign hopes to get. Obama's campaign has done well with college students — who often have not registered to vote before — as well as unaffiliated voters, while Clinton is focusing on a more traditional Democratic base.

Under state law, voters can register or re-register to a new party by Friday, but at one-stop sites voters who have already registered in the past cannot switch parties.

"We're bringing Republicans and Democrats and independents onto the voter rolls so that they can have a voice in the primary," said Obama spokesman Dan Leistikow.

Clinton spokeswoman Carly Lindauer said that while they are not formally signing up new voters right now, they have answered questions about registration through the N.C. Ask Me campaign.

"There is an enormous pool of unaffiliated voters, and I think those are giong to be critical to both campaigns in this election," she said.

Andrew Romano says Hillary Clinton's N.C. Ask Me ad is not interactive.

In a post on his Stumper blog, the Newsweek reporter writes that the bid to solicit questions from North Carolinians for use in upcoming ads is not as open as it seems.

Instead, it's about creating the superficial impression of solicitation—and hoping that it lends her bid a welcoming aura of Web 2.0 openness—while screening the submitted questions for toothless queries ("What's your plan for the economy?") that allow her to "respond" with carefully scripted talking points through the old-school, one-way medium of television advertising.

He writes that if Clinton really wanted to have a "conservation" with voters, she would submit to a live, unmediated Web chat.

On the other hand, he writes that Barack Obama's attempt to register high-schoolers to vote by offering to play basketball with them is not any more interactive, but it's end goal is voter registration, not a packaged media event.

"while the former First Lady awkwardly attempts to appeal to the latest generation of voters, Obama actually drives them to the polls," he writes.

In her latest ad, Hillary Clinton says the election is not about her.

The Democratic presidential candidate invites citizens to submit their questions to her at a new Web site, NCAskMe.com, and she'll answer them in future ads.

Here's a quick count of the pronouns in the 60-second ad:

"I" or "me": 12, including NCAskMe.com

"you" or "your": Six

"us" or "our": Two

Below, the text of the ad.

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