Do students dictate the contents of their professors' lectures?

Do legislators at the national level, really listen to their electorate who are perceived to be woefully uneducated in the complexities of modern public policy?

Why is there a disconnect between public outcry and public policy?  Why do we wind up cursing our own party's representatives?

If Barack Obama really wants to effect a revolution in American politics, he will need to do more than bridge the hyper-partisanship that is deadlocking the machine.

He will need to restore the transmission linkage between popular sentiment and legislative response. 

Not sure how that can be done since a governing "culture" has arisen that is self-consciously alienated from popular concerns.