Never Give Up the Ball
Modern political warfare is a battlefield in which small battles give way to the larger conflict for national rule and succession. In feudal times such conflicts might be settled with a coalition of lords aligned one way or another. In the modern colonial territories between the Atlantic and the Pacific, populated by a fragmented collection of states, races, religions and classes, the coalitions are assembled out of those groups.
Each side struggles to amass a winning coalition by showing as many groups as it can that it is on their side. In this environment political wars over policy come down to battles in which both sides position their approach as beneficial to as many of those groups as it can. That is why candidates pitch ethanol in Iowa, the auto industry in Michigan and moon colonies in Florida. It is also why Democrats inevitably roll out an election strategy based on their rainbow coalition of peoples supposedly advantaged by their policies.
This strategy works because of the love/hate relationship that people have with government, fearing its power but wanting it to do something, even if that something is nothing. No one wants to be caught in a situation where the power is on the other side. Some of this is natural distrust and some of it has a basis.
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