In the states during the 1800s, party hacks frequently liquored up the party members in their wards and marched them to the polls (constituents doggedly following the footsteps of the ward heelers).
Two years ago, Republican Congressman Denny Rehberg of Montana said his office polled constituents who told him they were overwhelmingly opposed to NREPA.
4.08pm: Over to Darrell Issa, the ranking Republican on the committee, who has been polling his constituents on Twitter over what to ask.
A Voter Poll; One Constituent KATE HUDSON, who plays a groupie in the film "Almost Famous," which opened yesterday, was at the premiere party with her mother, GOLDIE HAWN, at a re-creation of Max's Kansas City (it was really the bar Centro Fly).
A poll of 1,000 constituents in mid-August showed that Mr Johnson would help the Conservatives hold on to the seat by 42 per cent of the vote.
"If my job was merely limited to taking a poll of my constituents' views, that would not only go against the fundamental role of representative democracy; it could lead to tyranny," he said as we drove through Pasadena.
Lord Ashcroft, a Tory donor and former party vice-chairman, found in a poll of 1,000 constituents that the Tories would hold on to the seat vacated by John Randall by 42 per cent to 28 per cent over Labour if a general election were held tomorrow – a margin of 14 per cent.
This missive also doubled as a straw poll, asking his constituents whether or not they'd support him in a bid for re-election as an Independent.
Now a Quinnipiac University poll of his constituents, the people who presumably know him best, shows that most take him at his word and believe he will not run in 2012 presidential cycle.
Democracy (with truly free and fair elections) gives leaders incentives to generate public goods, or face punishment at the polls from their constituents.
In the interim, lawmakers will be in their home states, where polls show their constituents are not eager to attack Syria.
