California and New York are Democrat states, Texas is a Republican one. So there is little reason for the presidential candidates to visit them when they are basically locked up. I don't think it has to do with the electoral college so much as that...

Also, some of his numbers are way off. According to the US Census (see #29), 79% of the population was urban in 2000, not ~20% as he claims.

For a breakdown of metro areas by population, look at #21 at the US Census link, "Metropolitan Statistical Areas--Population by Age". There were 131 million votes cast for president in 2008. If you want to arbitrarily define urban as 1 million people or more, there are 126.4 million voting-age people living in metropolitan areas.

Sliced a different way, according to the US Census, a presidential candidate can get to 50% of that if they take the voting age populations of just the top 12 metropolitan areas:

New York-Northern New Jersey-Long Island, NY-NJ-PA
Los Angeles-Long Beach-Santa Ana, CA
Chicago-Joliet-Naperville, IL-IN-WI
Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, TX
Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington, PA-NJ-DE-MD
Houston-Sugar Land-Baytown, TX
Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD-WV
Miami-Fort Lauderdale-Pompano Beach, FL
Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Marietta, GA
Boston-Cambridge-Quincy, MA-NH
San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, CA
Detroit-Warren-Livonia, MI

I don't know where he gets his numbers--maybe by using strict city limits?--but they're not even close to reality. According to the facts, in a pure popularity vote, a presidential candidate can safely ignore the rural areas and still win an election.

The electoral college is imperfect, but whatever you want to replace it with should do a better job of representing a diversity of interests--geographic, demographic, and politic--than a direct popular vote.

He's definitely just gunning for a job at Fox news now. No presidential candidate could seriously state their partisanship to corporate power like that.

Why, thank you very much.

In reply to this comment by geo321:
*promote

There is such a huge contrast in demeanor, reasonableness, and verisimilitude between those representing Occupy and other protests around the country/world, and the politicians and talking head tools of the plutarchy. I don't understand how anyone with a brain and just a modicum of tangible social experience can observe the bearing, manner, and intonation of an Eric Cantor, Mitt Romney, John Boehner, any given Republican Presidential candidate or Fox & Friend and, unfortunately (for me), a Barack Obama, and not just feel played, condescended, and lied to. Perhaps it's what happens when one is finally exposed to intelligent, real people, and not just those studied in syntactical ambiguity and the dissemination of bullshit.

Ron Paul Releases the ONLY Presidential Candidate Balanced Budget Proposal

>> ^bareboards2:

I don't like this. Me, who always loves Maher.
Look, all religion is a matter of setting aside the rational mind and embracing belief in something outside yourself.
Romney was brought up in the Mormon Church, he didn't choose it. To ask him to set it aside as irrational is to ask him to set aside his family, his community, the very fabric of his life.
The Mormon church is one of the fastest growing religions on the planet, despite all the weirdness. I don't know how anyone could embrace the weirdness, but I do know why someone might embrace their culture -- it is structure, it is support, it is community, it is rules for living in an increasingly fractured society.
Don't pick on Romney for being Mormon. Not if you give every other non-atheist a pass on their particular brand of crazy.


Maybe it is too much to ask from Romney to see through his ultra-silly superstitions. Fine. There are lawns to be mowed and toilets to be unclogged everywhere. Put him to work. Just dont make him president of the most powerful nation on earth.

Call me an elitist intellectual atheistic asshole if you will, but the truth is that I think a presidential candidate ought to have the intellectual capacity to shed childish, inane superstition that is religion, and the intellectual honesty to admit it, despite the fact that this might enstrange them from family or friends, and voters..

Am I asking for a little more from the presidential candidate than I do for other people? Hell yeah.

I'm not taking them out of context.

All religions have irrational beliefs. Don't pick on the Mormons.

Romney was BORN a Mormon. He didn't choose it.

Well, I had my say. You had your say. There it is.

>> ^Drax:

You're taking it out of the context that this is a presidential candidate being discussed. His beliefs are very relevant to discussion if people are going to be able to vote for the person. Bill's bringing them to light, and mentioning that he feels this is one of the crazier beliefs out there. That's all relevant to a presidential candidate.
But Bill also has a way of delivering his information, it's what got him on T.V. You don't have to agree with how he goes about it, but it doesn't necessarily dilute the information itself.

You're taking it out of the context that this is a presidential candidate being discussed. His beliefs are very relevant to discussion if people are going to be able to vote for the person. Bill's bringing them to light, and mentioning that he feels this is one of the crazier beliefs out there. That's all relevant to a presidential candidate.

But Bill also has a way of delivering his information, it's what got him on T.V. You don't have to agree with how he goes about it, but it doesn't necessarily dilute the information itself.

(Unless you're just saying you don't like the way it was brought up, as opposed to don't discuss it at all. That I wouldn't argue with)

>> ^ChaosEngine:

Nice speech, now do something about it.


I agree, BUT:
I think that we have unrealistic expectations about Presidents being proactive and "getting things done" in all sorts of policy areas, when the reality of the checks and balances between different branches of government makes it so they actually can't do all of these things. Congress / the legislative branch sets tax rates, so the president has little to do with it, other than veto/approval of what congress puts on his desk.

So, making a speech is pretty much the only way that he actually can "do something about it".

The fact that every single president or presidential candidate makes campaign promises about things like this that are in reality almost entirely out of their control is frustrating, but on the other hand "if I get any tax increase bills from Congress, I will most likely try to veto it unless it is attached as a rider onto some other item that I am unable to veto" doesn't make for quite as good a sound-bite as "read my lips, no new taxes" (even if it turns out that you're just flat-out lying).

To get elected, you have to make promises that you can't actually follow through on, at least not without seriously adjusting the definition of "follow through".

Douchebag God: his "ordained" presidential candidate Perry makes a public spectacle (and official governmental act) of praying for rain, God sends him drought and wildfires.


*promote! (rewatch value: read the scrolly thingy and the other text)

The problem is in the relative sense of urgency. You can of course argue that the "solution" lies in presenting a complex debate thereby sensitizing the public.
That, however, takes time and focus as well a certain degree of trust in the democratic process under the given circumstances.

The video this comment bases on seems to point to the fact that the circumstances are probably not "ideal" to put it lightly.

R.P. is stuck (and I believe he knows that). He can not (or does not want to) muster the "charismatic appeal" of Palin, Bachman and the likes (political slang: "baby kissing" or "populism", whatever rocks your boat). That makes him so likeable for us but also utterly helpless in his candidacy.

It might not appear as such with the debate being so "flat", but he is running against some VERY clever people (or rather, VERY clever political advisors).

Boy, it would be awesome if time proves me wrong.

In reply to this comment by Lawdeedaw:
You call it the "problem" but isn't it the solution?

>> ^Mauru:

The problem with Ron Paul running as a presidential candidate would be that his ideologies are so radically different (not all good mind you) from the current political perspective in the US it would take a very well educated public to win the "undecided" voter.
i.e.: voters who actually vote on ideologies, campaign goals and what we would generally call reason instead of partisanship and cultural background.
The Republicans and mainstream media are well aware of that fact and while they secretly like RP to run as senator or basically any other position (even though they can't openly admit it) because he breaks traditional voting habits they would never boost him as a presidential candidate.
Sad but true. That's why there's all the smirking when he speaks. It's not because they fundamentally oppose his principles but because they believe that the level of debate R.P. as a candidate would require to succeed is unachievable (or perhaps undesirable) at America's cultural level

You call it the "problem" but isn't it the solution?

>> ^Mauru:

The problem with Ron Paul running as a presidential candidate would be that his ideologies are so radically different (not all good mind you) from the current political perspective in the US it would take a very well educated public to win the "undecided" voter.
i.e.: voters who actually vote on ideologies, campaign goals and what we would generally call reason instead of partisanship and cultural background.
The Republicans and mainstream media are well aware of that fact and while they secretly like RP to run as senator or basically any other position (even though they can't openly admit it) because he breaks traditional voting habits they would never boost him as a presidential candidate.
Sad but true. That's why there's all the smirking when he speaks. It's not because they fundamentally oppose his principles but because they believe that the level of debate R.P. as a candidate would require to succeed is unachievable (or perhaps undesirable) at America's cultural level

The problem with Ron Paul running as a presidential candidate would be that his ideologies are so radically different (not all good mind you) from the current political perspective in the US it would take a very well educated public to win the "undecided" voter.
i.e.: voters who actually vote on ideologies, campaign goals and what we would generally call reason instead of partisanship and cultural background.

The Republicans and mainstream media are well aware of that fact and while they secretly like RP to run as senator or basically any other position (even though they can't openly admit it) because he breaks traditional voting habits they would never boost him as a presidential candidate.

Sad but true. That's why there's all the smirking when he speaks. It's not because they fundamentally oppose his principles but because they believe that the level of debate R.P. as a candidate would require to succeed is unachievable (or perhaps undesirable) at America's cultural level

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

What a bunch of nut bags. Rick does scare me. he reminds me of the presidential candidate that Walken kills in Dead Zone.