The attached article discusses, of all things, the location of ice cream vendors on the boardwalk. If vendors spread out into their natural positions to gather traffic at each end of the beach (like politicians in the political spectrum), their opponent can take advantage by moving toward the middle and capturing more than his half of the territory. So the vendors (and the politicians) end up in the middle to prevent encroachment on their territory.
We hear this in every presidential debate. The candidates take positions that are popular to the greatest number while using phrasings that signal to their stalwart, more radical supporters that they really mean something stronger but "winkwink, we all know how the game is played." The moderators and pundits see this for what it is and struggle unsuccessfully to force admissions of significant differences.
It seems that this tactical caginess has evolved. Perhaps in the past, political professionals were less practiced at victory and thus the candidates sounded more convincingly left or right leaning. To me, this trend first became obvious in the bush gore debates of 2000. With Dick Cheney waiting in the wings and the scent of neo-conservatism in the air, it was astounding to hear so few policy differences. With the exception of what would be put into a lockbox, they raced each other to say the same things in reasonable tones.
The disturbing idea to me is that we listen. We can't help it as we try to understand the candidate. And yet, their later actions seem disconnected from the moderate positions they take. I suppose the jaded among us might say that we are really evaluating how well the candidates play this difficult game of coded lying. If they do it well in the elections, perhaps they'll do it well once in office, and after all, and sadly, that's how the game is played.
