Reply #69: I couldn’t agree with you more on the “us vs. them” attitude being bad for public choice.

[lostinacause]

History, however, has shown numerous examples where people get drawn to leaders who work to divide. The most famous example would be Hitler. Most recently Bush successfully obtained power in an election based largely on his ability to depict the Democrats as being weak on terrorism. Pierre Elliot Trudeau and Hugo Chavez are other examples and I can go on. In each of these cases the politicians has benefited from an “us vs. them” attitude. In light of such “benefits” it is not clear to me that, if wining is the primary objective, that one should avoid pinning people against each other.

I also agree with you the problems in previous elections. There is a big difference between a person who panders to all sides and someone who is a centrist. Kerry gave off the image of trying to hard to please everybody. In the end he looked as though he stood for nothing. Standing for balance is quite different that standing for everything.