>I think your criticism are on point - except the part about company funding. It is a little more complicated than that. Interest groups - including labor unions and soft money pacs funded by everyone from crazy right wing oil millionaires ( Clay Murchison in the LBJ days ) to crazy left wing currency speculators ( George Sjoros ) make the whole money process very ugly.
>
>But remember this is a very very big country with huge media markets and unfortunately most people get their info from TV

Point taken.


>By comparison, Holland has the population and media complexity of a medium sized American city, so your political process could be better compared to running for mayor of Philadelphia.

I don't think so. I was in philly two weeks ago, and I might be wrong, but I thought the city had about 4 million citizens. Holland has 4 times as much (16 million).

Further I think (anyone can correct me if I'm wrong) our system is more or less the same as the british. With 60 million citizens this is of course only 1/5 of north america, but still.

About media complexity. I really cannot judge as I really don't know. Can you say why you think your media is more complex than ours ? Just because of size or other reasons ?

Walter,