Is the United States a "delegative democracy"?

What is at stake in this election? Or, more appropriately, what isn't at stake? Perhaps one more thing to add to the list of what is:

The political scientist Guillermo O'Donnell describes the phenomenon of "delegative democracy," a flawed form of government that, while it features competitive elections, does not meet the criteria of an ideal liberal democracy. It is not responsive to the population, it concentrates power in the executive, and it can lead to dangerous policy mistakes. Here are excerpts from his description:

"What [the President of a delegative democracy] does in government does not need to bear any resemblance to what he said or promised during the electoral campaign--he has been authorized to govern as he sees fit." (Sounds famililar . . . will the American people re-elect George W. Bush and essentiall confirm that authorization?)

"Since this paternal figure has to take care of the whole nation, it is almost obvious that his support cannot come from a party; his political basis has to be a movement, the supposedly vibrant overcoming of the factionalism and conflicts that parties bring about." (Bears eery resemblance to the discourse of the Bush presidency and the discourse of his campaign--a movement of patriots to defend the country from immorality, terrorists, the French.)

"In this view other institutions--such as Congress and the Judiciary--are nuisances that come attached to the domestic and international advantages of being a democratically elected President." (Notice the number of executive orders the President has executed, the "fox in the henhouse" method of staffing Congressionally-required positions with people antithetical to the organizations' core philosophies, and the buckling of the courts to the President's handling of prisoners, at least until the minor set back that the President faced with forced trials for Gitmo prisoners.)

"[In a delegative deomocracy] if elections do not directly generate a clear-cut majority, that majority must be created for supporting the myth of legitimate delegation." (After seeing Vice President Gore undermine the efforts of African-American Congresspeople to challenge the election results . . . )

"DD [delegative democracy] has the additional advantage of allowing swift pollicy-making, but at the expense of a high likelihood of gross mistakes, of hazardous implementation, and of concentrating responsibility for the outcomes on the President." (Amazingly, the President has managed to avoid responsibility, mostly through misdirection, lying, feigning incompetence, and generally "being a good guy.")

Ultimately, O'Donnell argues that delegative democracies often come about during periods of social and economic crisis, and that they often exacerbate those crises. Furthermore, they damage democratic institutions. Granted, he is examining mostly Latin American democracies, and how they are not following a democratic teleology. But what happens when a supposedly liberal democracy begins to exhibit some of the characteristics of DD?

It will take a long time to make any determination abou the deterioration of American democracy. But as more events become signposts, as more patterns fit theories like O'Donnell's, the more it seems that our liberal democracy is breaking.