… At the state level, voters increasingly cast their ballots in similar partisan proportions for different candidates in different circumstances.
This political sclerosis reduces the system’s responsiveness to realities.
It used to be that great candidates fared much better than bad ones; a country doing well yielded very different results than the country in dire straits; parties putting forward wise polices got more votes than parties putting forward a seemingly reckless agenda.
No longer. Those factors still matter, but far less than they once did. CONTINUED
Mark Mellman (Mellman Group), The Hill
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