[forgotmysn]

Not to steer this conversation into campaign finance waters, but...

I'm not sure its accurate to depict constituent communication as market research, as the constituents are not always/not usually the market elected representatives are catering to. The people they need to please are the people who pay for their campaigns, rather than the people they try to reach with those campaigns.

[tedunangst]

I think politicians vote the way they're paid to vote on issues nobody cares about, but it can be dangerous to ignore voters on issues they do care about.

[forgotmysn]

That may be true, but one must also consider that the public is also not well enough informed on many issues to have an opinion worth merit.

Health care, foreign policy, corporate taxes, etc. are all extremely complex issues, and its hard to derive an informed opinion from the press alone. I think that's why it's hard to be a good leader and a popular leader at the same time.