In Orlando, Florida just hours after the first presidential debate, a reinvigorated John Kerry told a crowd at Freedom High School that he had a message for every “middle-class American family that’s struggling to build a better life for themselves and for their family: ‘I’ve got your back.'”

It’s not only a good soundbite, but a meaningful promise to the millions who’ve been squeezed tight by an Administration which treats the rich and the powerful as its base and the poor and middle class as its enemy. America wants to hear more. In the next two debates, Kerry has an opportunity to explain to the struggling and shrinking middle class–as well as the working poor–what he’ll do differently to give hope back to the millions of Americans desperately struggling to survive.

Today, the Drum Major Institute (DMI)–the New York based non-partisan organization–released a list of ten smart, tough and pointed questions designed to help Americans better understand the candidates’ positions on issues like job creation, expanded access to affordable health care, a restructured tax code and how Americans can cope with skyrocketing higher education costs.

“The current crisis of the middle class isn’t some grand coincidence,” says DMI’s savvy Executive Director Andrea Batista Schlesinger. “It was the result of public policy–and of choices made by those elected to represent us. We’re asking the presidential candidates to step up and identify the greatest challenges facing the middle class and talk specifically about what they will do to meet them.”

As Schlesinger puts it: “That’s the only way we can hold their feet to the fire the next time they come around wanting to appeal to the American Dream.”

DMI’s Top Ten questions will be shared with both campaigns and the moderators of the next two debates. They’ll also be posted on the group’s website, which collects a raft of valuable material. Click here to read and circulate the questions.