Since the participants in this process constitute only a tiny fraction of the populace, the public acts mainly as bystanders. Besides the logistical problems of having every citizen meet at one time to decide policies, political issues require continuous and expert attention, which the average citizen does not have. Most people, he explained, concentrate their time and energies on activities involving work, family, health, friendship, recreation, and the like. Other pluralists go further. Nor do pluralists think that representative democracy works as well in practice as in theory.
Voting is important, to be sure.
But Americans vote for representatives, not for specific policy alternatives. A candidate's election cannot always be interpreted as an endorsement of a particular course of action. President Reagan, for example, received approximately 51 percent of the ballots cast in 1980, but his total constituted only about a quarter of the votes of all potential voters, since only 55 percent of those eligible to participate actually went to the polls. Furthermore, a first choice among candidates is not necessarily the same as a first choice among policies. The people who elected President Clinton, for example, did not all agree with his positions on health care, taxes, national defense, Bosnia, and the environment.