To Mitt Romney's credit, he's been holding an awful lot of town hall meetings in New Hampshire. He calls them "Ask Mitt Anything" events, and they begin with a short speech followed by a question and answer session. These events promote the illusion that Romney is something other than a wealthy authoritarian who has spent 17 million dollars of his own money (so far) trying to become chief executive of the world's most powerful government.

Mitt's top-flight team of handlers does a pretty good job making sure the candidate doesn't have to face any particularly difficult questions on the road, but other than trying to remember faces like mine from previous events, there isn't really much they can do. As we learned Thursday, Oct. 4, when Romney appeared at St. Anselm's College in Manchester, a well-timed, well-asked question can make quite an impact.

In fact, this one made such an impact that we titled our video "How to Silence a Room Full of Clapping College Students."

(video posted below article)

The drama began when STRM's Phillip Allen asked Romney a very simple question in plain English:

My question has to do with your understanding of states' rights and the 10th Amendment. Last year, 44% of voters in Nevada voted to end Marijuana Prohibition in their state -- not just for medical use, but the whole failed policy. If you become president, and a state chooses to end its prohibition of marijuana during your term, how will you respond?

The crowd was mostly college students, i.e., citizens who are used to answering essay questions in response to a given prompt. Students know what grades to expect when they ignore the stated question and ramble on and on about irrelevant nonsense.

So what grade did Romney's answer get from the crowd? I'll let you read it, then watch the video and judge for yourself:

I believe that marijuana should be illegal in our country. It is the pathway to drug usage by our society which is a great scourge, which is one of the great causes of crime in our cities.

(No, governor, Prohibition is a major cause of crime, not marijuana use itself. But I'm sorry to interrupt your confused rant -- you were about to wax eloquent about the supposed evils of medical marijuana, which has over 70% support nationwide).

And I believe that we are at a state where of course we are concerned about people who are suffering pain, and there are various means of providing pain management, and those that have loved ones who have gone through an end of life with cancer, know the nature of real pain. I've watched my wife's mom and dad, both in our home were going through cancer treatment suffering a great deal of pain, but they didn't have marijuana and they didn't need marijuana because there were other sources of pain management that worked entirely effectively.

(Did I mention that medical marijuana legislation has over 70% support nationwide? And did Phillip mention that 44% of Nevada voters recently voted to end Marijuana Prohibition altogether?)

But having legalized (presumably medical?) marijuana is in my view an effort by a very committed few to try and get marijuana out into the public and to ultimately legalize marijuana. It's the wrong way to go. We need less drugs in the society, not more drugs, and I would oppose the legalization of marijuana in the country or the legalization of marijuana for medicinal purposes because pain management is available from other sources.

Thank you.

(DEAD SILENCE, Romney fidgets)

Uh, let's see, I guess it's my turn to choose. Go ahead, this young lady right here, yeah.

Okay, so did he, um, pass? You decide: