Fixing DemocracyPOLS 125: Political Parties &

Elections

One word

?

What ONE WORD best describes your impression of the

presidential candidates?

Word Cloud constructed from the responses people gave to a Pew Research Center poll, January 2012:

What ONE WORD best describes your impression of... Barack Obama

Word Cloud constructed from the responses people gave to a Pew Research Center poll, March 2012:

What ONE WORD best describes your impression of... Mitt Romney

?

What ONE WORD best describes your impression of the

Democratic and Republican parties?

Words that Democrats use to describe Republicans

Words that Democrats use to describe Republicans

Washington Post-Kaiser Family Foundation poll, August 2012

Words that Republicans use to describe Democrats

Washington Post-Kaiser Family Foundation poll, August 2012

What ONE WORD best describes your impression of Congress?

?

Word Cloud constructed from the responses people gave to a Pew Research Center poll in March 2010:

“One word that best describes your impression of Congress"

So we don’t like POLITICAL CANDIDATES, or the PARTIES they represent, or the INSTITITUIONS they manage,

How then do we feel about the democratic ELECTIONS that seek to change those things?

What one word describes your current state of mind?

Throughout Election Day in 2008, NYTimes.com readers submitted the words that best described their moods.

One year later…

What’s Wrong with U.S. Elections?

Can we take these words and combine them into sentences that identify the weaknesses of the U.S. electoral system?

• Candidates• Parties • Institutions• Process

What’s Wrong with U.S. Elections?

Inefficient, unfair election proceduresSystem corrupted by the wealth and greed of special interestsPolarized political partiesOut-of-touch candidatesUninformed and apathetic votersA sensationalist media intent on uncovering scandal

But is any of this new?

William McKinley, 1896

1876Samuel Tilden

1896

James Blaine, 1884

1860

William Henry Harrison, 1888

Adlai Stevenson, 1892

http://cagle.com/caglecards/main.asp?image=/news/Mudslinging08/images/britt4.gif

1868

1876

What’s the message here?

Whatever is wrong with U.S. elections, it is nothing new.Is this a comforting conclusion? Why or why not?