Candy Crowley is CNN's senior political correspondent, part of the team covering tomorrow night's CNN/YouTube GOP Debate. She joined the network twenty years ago, in 1987, from NBC News, and previously was CNN's congressional correspondent. Crowley began her broadcast journalism career as a newsroom assistant for WASH-FM in Washington, D.C., later becoming a White House correspondent for the Associated Press. She is a graduate of Randolph College in Virginia.

1. TVNewser: In twenty years, CNN has evolved...
Crowley: Into a place with a lot of people younger than I am. Oh, and the arena has expanded considerably. We are blogging. We are podcasting. We are dotcoming. We are uploading still pictures. We are digital. We are integrating our platforms. Hear us roar. We are also doing television. The pace is considerably quicker and the content is certainly more varied.

2. TVNewser: Reporting on politics is:
Crowley: A blast. Now, when my producers read this they will say, "Huh?" because I regularly complain about the hassle of the travel, the tedium of the speeches, the lack of sleep, the crankiness of (some of) the campaigns, the chaos of the schedules, and of course the (fill in the blank) of the office — BUT at this moment, from the comfort of my home, having had three nights of 8-hour sleep, and two days off, I tell you reporting on politics is a blast, this weird mix of High Drama and Theater of the Absurd that somehow selects who will be in charge of the Western World.

A lot of (non) voters think politics is Pluto-mysterious, a little frightening and unrelated to their daily lives. I blame us for failing to get across both the fun (read: wackiness) and the relevance of politics, and I blame politicians who too often "connect only in election years."

3. TVNewser: If I couldn't be a reporter, I'd be...
Crowley: A Homicide Detective

4. TVNewser: Having grown up in the Midwest (Michigan and Missouri), what I love most about it is:
Crowley: Midwesterners, people with razor sharp perspective on what matters. My family (still mostly Midwesterners) thinks my job and hours are insane. Actually, when I'm standing on the third airport tarmac in six hours in a driving snowstorm watching a politician shake hands with local Boy Scouts on a day when somehow the story became whether Sen. Barack Obama erred when he talked about arugula in Iowa or how much Sen. Hillary Clinton tipped a waitress, I think "They're right. This IS insane." My family still thinks I'll see the light and come home.

When my parents visited me in D.C., they were stunned at the traffic and the lines in the grocery stores, the hardware stores, the movies, the coffee shops, the parking lots etc. Life is not simpler in the Midwest, but it is easier. There is as well a directness and honesty there that I prize. Also, I LIKE red jello with bananas in it, but I can't tell anyone that here. Everybody here thinks I like tofu.

5. TVNewser: Going to an all-women's college (then called Randolph-Macon Woman's College) was...
Crowley: Male-less. I hate to sound like Hillary Clinton, but going to an all-girls school helped prepare me for the various boys' clubs one encounters along the way (my all-brother family also helped). I'm pretty sure I liked college, what I remember of it.