Word: shallowest
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Dates: during 1991-1991
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Nearly a quarter-century of well-intentioned reforms have demonstrated the law of unintended consequences. Until 1968, party leaders controlled the process, spicing up their back-room bargaining with a handful of hotly contested presidential primaries. This elitist tradition has been replaced in both parties by the shallowest form of mass democracy: a gauntlet of party primaries (36 states in 1988) that give an almost unbeatable edge to the candidate who can raise the most money. Rather than bring presidential contenders closer to the voters, the current system virtually walls the candidates off behind a TV barrier of sound bites...