ABSTRACT
The reason this paper was almost never published is that it reflects a reality exactly the opposite of the assumptions of most people in government and the academic world. From the perspective of ideological people who took politics seriously in their daily lives, it was unthinkable that other Americans did not follow politics, or have ready policy opinions, and fulfill their role in the academic understanding of democratic theory. But all of the collective evidence since that time indicates that Converse was correct, then and still today.
