Somehow, open heart surgery means more to most of us then the Alton, Illinois, Lock and Dam 26. - John W. Kingdon

Flowing along independently of the problems and policy streams is the political stream, composed of such things as public mood, pressure group campaigns, election results, partisan or ideological distributions in Congress, and changes of administration.

Public policy changes in very large leaps, as in the New Deal of the 1930's, the Great Society of the mid-1960's, and the Reagan revolution of 1981. These spasms of reform are interspersed with periods of rest and stasis, as if the participants are exhausted from their exertion and catching their breath. But in any event, this does not look like Darwinian, gradualistic evolution.

Consensus is built, sometimes very rapidly, by cutting in many and diverse interests.