Californians Ask The Questions in YouTube Debate

Yesterday, when I was watching the CNN/YouTube Democratic debate I noticed that there was a significant number of Californian's questions that were selected to be asked of the candidates. Out of the 38 questions that were asked, eight came from Californians. No other state even came close to matching that total. Minnesota, Michigan, South Carolina and Pennsylvania had two each. The rest were single digits and two came from unknown locations.

Everyone in the country was eligible to submit a question. A state by state breakdown of the origin of all of the 2,000+ questioners is impossible to find, since we only know user names. However, during the debate they listed the hometown of almost all. So we can't know if this was a representative sample of the questions asked. Regardless, it is great to see so many Californians get a chance to ask the candidates questions during the debate. Wouldn't it be ironic if there were more CA questions asked during this debate than the one in LA?

Below the fold are the Californian questions and the name and hometown of the questioner.

Stephen Marsh of Thousand Oaks asked: Will you treat non-religious Americans equally?

Zedene Abraham of Oakland, CA asked: What does "In G-d we trust mean to you?"

Lucia Brawley of Los Angeles, CA asked: Does your health care plan cover undocumented workers?

Melissa Compagnucci of San Luis Obispo asked: Why don't we have standardized voting?

Stephanie Mackley Berkeley How will your policies reduce energy consumption?

Stephen Storta, Diamond Bar asked: Would you meet diplomatically with these countries leaders?

Randy McGirr from Desert asked: No Child Left Behind, scrap or revise?

Rob Porter Irvine, CA Are you a "liberal"?

Update: Here is an interesting article written by my uncle as part of the project Off The Bus about the interviewers experiences.