>" Meg Whitman was a failure: but what if she's backed someone who was a great politician instead." It would be illegal, unfortunately. The amount of money you

>" Meg Whitman was a failure: but what if she's backed someone who was a great politician instead." It would be illegal, unfortunately. The amount of money you can spend on your own campaign is unlimited, the amount you can spend on others is capped. >"It's just that today, with media and technology, the ratios are larger than ever before." If you mean that more people can exert political influence, then I agree with you. Something like the Tea Party would have been impossible a few decades ago. The internet allows citizens to organize and exert pressure on politicians like never before. That said, 99.9% of the bureaucracy is unelected. Changing the thin film of politicians layered on top doesn't have as large of an effect on actual policy as we think.