Focusing our study

That's probably true, but I feel like the more local your political analysis becomes, the less people become interested. For example, I have no real interest in how the municipal race in Vancouver is going to turn out because its perceived to have a smaller effect on me, whether or not thats true. I do care, however, on how federal elections turn up, both in Canada and the US.

More people are going to be able to recognize Barack Obama and his policies over Gordon Campbell (HST, excluded here), simply because his power is much "sexier" and more appealing to the masses. Campbell has a MUCH higher effect on residents of BC, however.

Maybe we can ask a question on which political races individuals more closely follow. Personally, I believe that those preferences are strongly affected by the media... I think in terms of a correlation between independent variable: size of political race (in terms of number of eligible voters) and dependent variable: voter turnout in percentage, there will be a strong positive correlation...

I'm sure there are several reasons for this, but bottom line is CNN's national broadcast is not going to cover an issue that does not appeal to (in their opinion) ALL viewers.