
Author/Contributor(s): | Summers, Mark Wahlgren |
Publisher: | University of North Carolina Press |
Date: | 04/19/2004 |
Binding: | Paperback |
Condition: | NEW |
Summers also points out that hardball politics and third-party challenges helped make the parties more responsive. Ballyhoo did not replace government action. In order to maintain power, major parties not only rigged the system but also gave dissidents part of what they wanted. The persistence of a two-party system, Summers concludes, resulted from its adaptability, as well as its ruthlessness. Even the reform of political abuses was shaped to fit the needs of the real owners of the political system--the politicians themselves.