Punch the Politicians -WaPo calls it an "experiment"

Whack-a-Mole!

That's one way to look at the results of an online experiment based on this beloved carnival game and conducted by The Washington Post, washingtonpost.com and Shanto Iyengar, director of Stanford University's political communication lab.

About 1,500 people found their way to our Web site to whack away at eight celebrities, eight politicians or eight notorious dictators. (Instead of mashing stuffed animals with a wooden mallet when they popped out of holes in a table, our players clicked on faces that appeared on-screen and then vanished back into boxes.)

Participants also took a survey that asked how they feel about the Republican and Democratic parties and about selected party leaders....

....Our lighthearted game helps explain how real politics is played.