Pessimism

I hate to be a pessimist. I wonder if I were someone else if I would want to be my friend. I long for someone on the national/international political scene who could inspire with hope rather than fear.
And I wonder whose at fault for that glaring absence. For instance, I was chauffeuring my sister recently for treatments and she listens to am/talk radio (something I avoid like the plague) and a woman was explaining why she voted the way she did. It was all about her anger over the lack of accomplishments of those she'd voted for in the past. The moderator, at the end of her harangue, said that she had perfectly articulated the "feelings" of the public. In that same vein, I heard some interviewer ask Whopee Goldberg if she had any advice for young voters. She said, "Oh young people don't need advice from me. They know how they FEEL (my emphasis).
I wonder if it's healthy to make policy (and that is what you're doing when you vote) based on how you FEEL. Do you vote for someone new just because the people you put in power before didn't accomplish all you wanted them too?
How about, would that person make a good president, prime minister, legislator, etc? As voting members in a democracy, it seems to me that we set the tone. If people get elected by scaring you, then whose fault is that? How about not asking how people FEEL, but what they THINK. Is that not the responsible, mature thing to do?