Obama at a campaign event in Milwaukee this past weekend. (Barack Obama/Flickr)

Despite the fact that Hasselbeck prefaced her question by telling the audience how much she personally supports the president, the fact that she still asked the president a tough question about an issue relevant to the election is notable.

Since July 13, Obama has done at least 26 interviews with non-traditional or alternative media outlets, according to information provided by the Obama campaign, although The Huffington Post speculated that the total number of interviews with non-traditional media is much higher.

The Obama campaign has said that these interviews let the president reach a greater range of Americans. For the most part, however, during his interviews with non-traditional media, the president has mostly fielded softball questions ranging the gambit from sports, television shows, music and pop culture.

In the interview, Hasselbeck asked, "Some would ask is it unfair to assume that Mitt Romney may fail the middle class when statistically speaking, they'd argue that your administration is failing the middle class. How do you respond to that?"

Rather than citing specific policy that his administration has done or is planning to do to improve life for the middle class, Obama responded:

 “Well look, we've gone through the toughest economy, the worst financial crisis and the worst recession since the Great Depression," Obama said. "And that's not a surprise to anybody. We've been living it for the past four years, and everything that we've done has been designed to deal with not only the immediate crisis but to make sure that the middle class...is feeling more secure."

He added, "The question now I think for the American people [is] how are we going to move forward in a way that assures that if you work hard in this country, if you take responsibility for yourself and your family, you can get ahead. And what this campaign is really going to be about is a choice between two fundamentally different visions about how you do that."

A question like the one Hasselbeck asked Tuesday is a rarity in these types of interviews, The Huffington Post reported.

From The Huffington Post:

Obama's interview with DJ Laz, and his sit-downs with People magazine and Entertainment Tonight….were widely criticized as deliberately planned softballs. His appearance on KOB-FM, during which he was asked what type of superpower he would like to have, was mocked by Republicans, as was his talk with Obie and Lil Shawn, during which he disputed, correctly, the notion that rapper Nicki Minaj had endorsed Republican nominee Mitt Romney.

In an interview with ABC News, White House spokesman Josh Earnest argued that the president has not been shying away from hardball questions, and has been accessible to all types of national and local press throughout the campaign cycle.

“The president’s spent a lot of time talking publicly about the issues that he thinks are at stake in this election and are worthy of an important political debate about the future of the country,” Earnest said.

However, Obama's visit to New York to appear on "The View" did not reinforce this view. Earlier this week, Wolf Blitzer called attention to the fact that the president chose to meet with the morning show hosts rather than meet with the United Nations General Assembly which was convening that day in New York, as well. 

"I do think there potentially is a missed opportunity this week for the president of the United States to meet with world leaders, but he's made the decision that Secretary Clinton will meet with those world leaders and not him," Blitzer said. "He’s going to be speaking to millions of people who will be watching 'The View,' and they determined that is an important thing for the president to do only six weeks before the election."

Still while the president's reasoning for choosing to go on "The View" rather than go to the U.N. may have been to allow him to reach a larger audience, rather than take advantage of that audience to share his positions, The Huffington Post wrote that the president “brushed [Hasselbeck's question] off,” missing an opportunity to respond to an important question. 

A lot of attention has been given to Romney during this election cycle. Perhaps, due to the intense scrutiny Romney has been under, the American public feels more informed about his positions, good or bad, his flip-flops and the things he would rather have kept under wraps, such as the recent 47 percent debacle. Currently, 29 percent of Democrats say that they feel that stories about Romney have been too easy, the Los Angeles Times reported. Alternatively, 60 percent of Republicans feel coverage of the president has been too easy.

Read more of Neon Tommy's coverage of the 2012 Election here.

Reach Staff Reporter Jackie Mansky here.