He cites the Council of 500 as an example of a populist institution chosen by lot, but the average Athenian did not often place his name among those to be chosen. The reason for this was that the council was a time-consuming occupation. Its members met frequently on both legislative and administrative matters. A poor Athenian could not take the time from his farm or trade to attend the council regularly. The result was that only wealthy Athenians could afford that particular type of public service.

In addition, the legislative assemblies open to all Athenians were not well attended. While the city did pay citizens a stipend to attend, it was a paltry sum and was not sufficient to entice poor voters to attend regularly.

The result of this situation was an administrative council dominated by the upper class and an assembly attended regularly only by middle and upper class voters. Since this is the very situation that Papandreou decries in our modern democracies, why would he want to exchange one bad situation for another?

The answer can be found in his attachment to the process known as “deliberative polling.� The politically ignorant voters assembled through this process are magically turned into informed and eloquent voters capable of deciding important issues, all in the space of a single afternoon. The briefing materials helpfully provided for them are, quite naturally, compiled by wholly non-partisan sources.

This, of course, is complete nonsense.

Papandreou’s rosy picture of an untarnished Athenian populism is merely a rhetorical flourish meant to disguise the true intent behind the push for deliberative polling: Since he and others like him cannot win with the informed and engaged voters of primaries, then they will be replaced with uninformed and easily manipulated voters.

— Sean Paroski, Camarillo