"The mass media has been single-mindedly focused on the White House and campaigns for the presidency for two generations now. Is it any wonder that most people have lost the feeling that the country and its politics are theirs and they are responsible for maintaining liberty and democracy? Ben Franklin told the people outside the Philadelphia Convention that the Founders had put together “a Republic, if you can keep it.” Now every four years and most of the time in between we’re mesmerized with the idea that if we can just find that one perfect person who can pull the presidential sword from the stone, all will be well. We have been waiting around for this Mr. Goodbar for thirty years of deadlock, drift, and disappointment in our politics since Watergate times. Nobody seems to get the message that our problems are bigger than the presidents; we are stuck in a storyline that lets the rest of us off the hook."

Dick Flannery, writing in Homer Simpson Goes to Washington