Reply #1: Think of national politics as a system and it all makes sense [View All]

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

Presidential politics gets the most attention, but it has little to do with real politics. Politics really is local.
Large changes occur in small political units -- towns, cities and states. Ideas and solutions explode onto the national stage only after a long process of upward percolation from small government.

It is illogical to expect large differences between presidential candidates because the election is national, involving averages of hundreds of millions of individual attitudes. Of course the result is bland... it cannot be otherwise. The idea is to best approximate the average of everybody in a large country.

The best way to think about a presidential election is the game show The Price is Right. In a national two party race the goal is not to be right in the abstract. The goal is to be closer to right than the other guy without needlessly alienating nessecary blocs of voters.

Imagine that the item is a refrigerator. One candidate guesses $850. The other candidate believes the refrigerator costs $1249. What should his guess be?

If his interest is in being RIGHT then he would guess $1249. One could say that $1249 is the principled answer because it is what be believes to be true. But If his interest is in actually winning, the only correct answer is $851.

Then everybody says, look, there is only $1 difference between the candidates.

There are actually vast differences between the parties, but they are minimized in national elections. To effect dramatic change, turn to local politics where an individual can make a large difference. Presidential races are special cases.