With America so evenly split politically, compromise would seem to beckon. For policy, it offers possible solution to long festering problems. For politics, it offers the prospect of seizing the center on which victory appears to balance.
However it is neither policy nor politics that reveals why "center politics" does not prevail… it is economics. Near-balance makes compromise less likely, not more so, because this when its risk/reward ratio -- i.e., its political cost -- is highest.
America's close and deep divide is plain. Barack Obama won the popular vote in 2008, 52.5 percent to 46.2 percent. According to November 2010 midterm election exit polling, Obama's approval/disapproval rating was 44 percent/55 percent. According to a 3/5 Gallup tracking poll, Obama's approval/disapproval ratings are 45 percent/48 percent. And according to the latest NBC/Wall Street Journal poll, he leads Mitt Romney, his closest challenger, 50 percent to 44 percent.
Average these numbers from the last four years and you come up with a 47.9 percent to 48.3 percent difference. That's extraordinarily close.
Read more: http://spectator.org/archives/2012/03/27/americas-center-divide
However it is neither policy nor politics that reveals why "center politics" does not prevail… it is economics. Near-balance makes compromise less likely, not more so, because this when its risk/reward ratio -- i.e., its political cost -- is highest.
America's close and deep divide is plain. Barack Obama won the popular vote in 2008, 52.5 percent to 46.2 percent. According to November 2010 midterm election exit polling, Obama's approval/disapproval rating was 44 percent/55 percent. According to a 3/5 Gallup tracking poll, Obama's approval/disapproval ratings are 45 percent/48 percent. And according to the latest NBC/Wall Street Journal poll, he leads Mitt Romney, his closest challenger, 50 percent to 44 percent.
Average these numbers from the last four years and you come up with a 47.9 percent to 48.3 percent difference. That's extraordinarily close.
Read more: http://spectator.org/archives/2012/03/27/americas-center-divide
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