In what ways does public opinion influence the formation of a democratic society?

In theory, in a democratic society, public opinion is influenced tremendously. The government wants to follow what the citizen ideas, attitudes, values, and beliefs are. In a democratic society, every citizen is able to vote if they are registered to vote. That means every single citizen has an influence on the issues at hand. But does public opinion really influence what the decisions political leaders take? I highly doubt it. Political leaders have their own ideas, attitudes, values, and beliefs about political issues too. They already have made up their minds on issues. The key for political leaders is if any of the citizens agree with what they think. Some political leaders are wishy-washy about what they think about issues. They try to maintain a balance of opinion so that potential votes they get don’t go entirely against them. Later, if elected for office then the public finds out what they really thought about the issues. Other political leaders have promised things such as lowering taxes but when elected and it came time to do that, they did not do it.

In the video below is a perfect example of a president saying one thing and doing the other.  President Bush says “read my lips no new taxes.”  That is an interesting use of words.  He would later do the exact opposite.  There were new taxes.  He had to eat his own words and that cost him the election against Bill Clinton.

The public obviously wanted no new taxes.  They didn’t even want any of the taxes that currently existed.  President Bush knew that.  Any political leader knew that was what the public wanted.  President Bush was deceitful in his campaign.  In reality, he really knew that there were going to be new taxes.  He wanted to focus on a way he could win the election.  If you know how the public stands on an issue, it only makes sense to stand with the majority in the campaigning phase.  Later on when elected, you can always go back and reverse your decisions on how you stand on certain issues.  That is why I feel as though the public’s opinion only goes so far.  Just because the public wants things done a certain way or have a certain stance on issues does not mean the political leaders are going to side with public during the campaigning and when elected.  So my question is what can be done so the public opinion matters more than the current state it is in?