Older people are a politically powerful group with a high turnout rate in elections, and they have punished politicians whom they saw as tampering with Medicare.

Attempts to publicly punish Catholic politicians for pro-choice positions have so far been limited to only a few conservative clerics.

While homophobia is hardly extinct, voters tend to punish politicians who stoke it.

"Politicians will respect, rather than manipulate, reality only if the public cares about the truth and punishes politicians when it catches them in deliberate deception."

This would measure economic growth of families and punish politicians in charge of states with poor economic growth for minority families.

Voters may punish politicians who take large bribes, or live lavish lifestyles.

Richard A. Viguerie, the direct-mail pioneer, threatened to punish politicians who supported it.

There, the fast-growing Hispanic and Asian populations have moved to punish anti-immigrant politicians in the voting booth.

That target proved illusory when people weren't eager to punish politicians for the crisis.

"Should we, when we came to power in 1981, have opened investigations into all those deeds and punished those governments and politicians?"