Washington Politics

Voting is wonderful. I feel pride every time I get the priviledge to vote on any level. What I ask on this post is this: When did an individual American start to loose s/he the intelligence to vote? Has it always been about money? If you have money to get your propoganda out to the masses you win? At what point in our history did we start falling for the ads? Has it always been this way?
Politics have always been dirty. Candidates who vow to throw no mud, usually have to throw more mud than their opponent just to survive, even if they took 'the pledge' in good faith. What are coming to? There are political machines out there who spend more time on winning than considering what is best for America! Look, I'm not naive, I know that humans run politics, and as humans we all have our best interests in mind,sincere interests from Left and Right. Why does that keep our current system from producing the best President? Reagen wasn't the best,Bush 1 wasn't the best, Clinton wasn't the best. They all fell for the human weakness and their mistakes will be judged accordingly.
GW Bush fell for an entirely different kind of human weakness, power. It's one thing to fall for the power of your nation, it is another to fall for the power of your party. I can think of no other President who so blatantly tried to consolidate power for the sake of power for his party. The great 'uniter' has been the greatest divider of all American history. He has used his political base to win, and then thrown them aside. His political machine was very effective and yet we wound up with the worst President in U.S. history. When did we become a nation of sheep and how do we keep this from happening again?