Originally Posted by Villages Kahuna

All this seems to raise the question of who is ultimately at fault for the people who are elected to govern us?

The candidates? The good ones, the bad ones; those that mount and effective campaigns and those that don't; those that debate well and those that don't; those that have a reliable record and those that don't-- I don't think so.

The electorate? Those that put their X in the box or punch out the chad or touch the screen without understanding the issues or thinking about who they're voting for; those that make their voting decision based on sound bites from entertainers instead of researching the issues themselves; those that vote a straight party ticket because one party or the other performed in a certain way decades ago?

Nope, I think we've hit the nail on the head on who to blame for governance that either wasn't expected or that we decide we don't like. It's the old "point your finger at someone else and four fingers are pointing back at you" proverb.