Suppose someone told you that for just two cents on the national dollar we could have a country where everyone had health insurance, full-time workers earned a living wage, poor children had great teachers in fixed-up schools, and politicians no longer had to grovel to wealthy donors. And suppose that when we were done, government would still be smaller than it was when Ronald Reagan was president. If you're like most people, you'd probably think that for two cents on the dollar this sounds like an intriguing deal. But 2 percent of America's GDP is more than 200 billion a year--way beyond...

It is a truism that the issues politicians discuss in campaigns deserve study, but what about the issues they do not discuss? The question of what gets on a presidential campaign's radar screen, what does not, and why is central to understanding how effectively campaigns function as tools of self-government.

This issue of The Annals examines dimensions of these questions through articles originally commissioned for two conferences at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. If these articles together amount to a catalogue of complaints about the quality of America's...

It is a truism that the issues politicians discuss in campaigns deserve study, but what about the issues they do not discuss? The question of what gets on a presidential campaign's radar screen, what does not, and why is central to understanding how effectively campaigns function as tools of self-government.

This issue of The Annals examines dimensions of these questions through articles originally commissioned for two conferences at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. If these articles together amount to a catalogue of complaints about the quality of America's...