For those who do not get extended cable channels such as Fox news, coverage without liberal bias is not an option. Likewise, they probably aren't terribly selective about their power provider, as their options are simply "take it" or "leave it."

I'll agree with you on the entertainment topics.

...But not on the votes. How do you prove that mud-slinging is capable of winning a vote that wouldn't have otherwise been gained?

Can't. Humans are nosy creatures; they want the dirt regardless of whether or not it influences their vote.

And "collective choices" is a contradiction in terms, IMHO...but politicians who favor socialism wouldn't agree.

Other than that, I get your point. As I am an Econ major, the laws of supply and demand have been driven into my soul. ...So when I bitch about these topics, believe me when I say, the rant is solely directed as those whose demands are inexplicably senseless or tasteless, if not both.

Television news (and newspapers and websites, too) are funded by advertising revenue and are for profit. They run what they think gets them the most eyeballs (the most valuable eyeballs, that is, the 18 to 35 crowd).

If politicians and their handlers didn't think mud-slinging didn't help them win, they wouldn't bother doing it. They would do what they think helps them win.

"Collective choices" was a shorthand for saying "The aggregate sum of the choices made by the public results in a lowest common denominator that all of these "they" people pander to." Sometime shorter but less precise is better.
:-P

C'mon... Rhetoric is never 100% precise or 100% accurate (if anything can be either in matters of opinion).