Pizza Hut Wants You to Ask the Presidential Candidates about Their Favorite Pizza Toppings

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Other than a cameo made by a certain Sesame Street character, the first presidential debate between Mitt Romney and Barack Obama was refreshingly light on late-night comedy laugh lines and heavy on wonkish tax policy stances. But beware: the day after the next debate we might just be talking about pizza topping preferences.

That, at least, appears to be the hope of the marketing folks at Pizza Hut. In a Tuesday press release and video ad, the company announced that it’ll give a lifetime’s supply of pizza to any debate attendee willing to do the following:

[Ask] either of the participants the age-old burning question – Sausage or Pepperoni? – during the live telecast town hall format presidential debate on Oct. 16 at Hofstra University.

If you go through with the stunt, as USA Today notes, you’ll actually just be getting a $520 Pizza Hut gift card every year for “up to 30 years.” The promotion, of course, is already getting panned as a grave insult to the democratic process. But, if you’ve got the stomach to endure ridicule for morphing a serious political debate into a product placement opportunity, you might as well collect your pies as a reward.

But the likelihood of that query being put to the candidates is slim: the only opportunity to ask such a question would be at the Oct. 16th debate, which will take the form of a town hall-style forum, and one assumes that debate organizers aren’t going to just let any old pizza fan ask the questions. The third and final debate, held at Lynn University on Oct. 22nd, will be formatted like the first round–just a moderator and the candidates. Still, Romney and Obama may want to prepare a couple zingers, just in case.

MORE: Obama vs. Romney: Which Presidential Debate Drinking Game Is Right for You?