This year's election has gotten me thinking.  As I said before, this year candidates have been referencing getting back to the principles encoded in our nation's Constitution, so I pulled out my little pocket version, and started reading it for myself.  I'm also fascinated with history, and have done some research on what was going on in the country at the time of the Constitution.  There was no real common ground among the men entrusted with creating this document.  Some favored a strong central government providing a strong single unified position for the country and to the world at large.  Others felt that the role of Federal government should be minimal, and that states should be able to implement policies based on their own unique needs and priorities.  Those following the big  government concept, led by Jefferson, were known as Federalists. They operated on the idea that the common man was too uneducated to be trusted with major governmental decisions.  Jackson headed those that felt that for the government to be responsive to the entire population, the common man would have to have a say in its operation.  They were known as Republicans.  Still others felt that the idea of a government based on the principles of a democratic republic was such a new concept that whatever they decided, no one could really predict the outcome.  The resulting document represented a compromise that took into account everyone' s concerns to the extent possible.
(Sorry, I got thinking so much I forgot to come back, and then I wanted to wait for a while for the election hysteria to die down.).  To continue, one leader (I believe i,t was Jackson) is supposed to have made a statement that the responsibility for the success of such a government was completely dependent on having a fully informed citizenry.  Thus, candidates who wanted to run for office would campaign to present their ideas on what issues were most important,, how the government should approach such issues, and what other issues should be considered by the infant nation.  Campaigns were determined by the individual candidates in keeping with the overall principles of their party.  They were focused wholly, or nearly so, by what the candidate intended to do, not on what the other candidates had not done, or were not expected to do. Voters were not bombarded with negative sound bites.  The positions of  the candidates  were not forced upon them by any national organization. Thus, those who were elected were only responsible for representing the positions of the people that had elected them.
Compare that to to the past election in which many candidates were totally, or in large part, focused on negative references to shat the other party had or had not done, and promises of more negative result if that party's candidates were elected or reelected.  Little or no mention was made of what the candidates intended to do, specifically to make this country a better place to live.  We, as voters, were placed in a position that we were forced to choose the lesser of two evils.  The concepts of our forefathers  of the necessity of a well-informed voting public to support a truly representative republican democracy seem to have totally disappeared.  I think both Jefferson and Jackson are rolling over in their graves at this travesty of the real democratic process.