   2. Criticizing the role of money in politics.  3. Bellyaching
about how much we hate negative ads.   5. Crying out for
elimination of the Electoral College.  The chorus in the final
step is almost always led by media outlets from large states  —
whether reliably Democratic ( New York and California) or
Republican ( Texas) — bemoaning the lack of attention paid to
their populations because of the antiquated way in which our
Founding Fathers opted to conduct presidential elections.    The
criticism is that the process is undemocratic.  Yes, it's true
that a candidate can become president simply by winning the
popular vote in the 11 most populous states. Of course, that
didn't happen — again — this year. Barack Obama won both the
national popular vote and secured wins in 27 states.  The
process was intended to make sure that issues in less populous
states weren't entirely forgotten and to give us the so-called
"swing states," a term Coloradans have become overly familiar
with in the last two election cycles.