Nevil, first let me apologize for spell check for adding the second E to your name. I use Donald J. in print so as not to see Donnie when I was quoted by the media my years of public service in governor's offices and school districts as a press secretary and communications director, respectively.

I also appreciate your comments in return. I'm glad you did not take mine as "snarky," as that is not how I meant them.

Your point about voter turnout is understood. Some suggest that's intended oppression by means of one party or the other. Another factor is efficacy. Another related to the things I'm learning from Aldoux Huxley in his 1958 book, Brave New World Revisited.

Huxley maintained that the larger an organization, such as a government, particularly a bureaucracy becomes, the more digrees of separation there are between the representative nature of the government and actual persons.

Conversely, if one considers the constitutionally-limited number of members of the U.S. House of Representatives, and U.S. Senate, being in contact with one's reps is near impossible.

As you know, each U.S. Senator represents his/her entire state. House members are said to now each represent 700,000 people.

There is little room for argument that most every House member in no way represents the interests of that many people. One could easily come to believe, "If Rep. Cohen doesn't know anything about me, why should I take time off work, go stand in a line and vote for him in November?"

Particularly since House seats are up every two years.

I'm still not convinced about Putin's lack of sanity. Time will tell, as they say, right?

Hope we are in similar hemispheres at some point in time.--Donny