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So you didn't like the primaries. You thought they dragged out, that the candidates didn't connect, say anything new, take a stand, establish a precedent or make a promise that they could possibly keep once in office.

Guess what? The primaries were just a taste of things to come: The U.S. system of elections not only tolerates but actively promotes inconsistency, evasion and a lack of clear choices on Election Day.

To begin with, the first-past-the-post, winner-take-all Electoral College pushes candidates to the center of the U.S. political spectrum. Whereas the primaries encourage candidates to appeal to their partisan supporters, the general election will force each candidate to stake out the median voter. They will therefore dance the classic Texas two-step, moving back to the center and branding themselves as the candidate most capable of addressing American's aches and pains, without ever diagnosing the ailment or providing a prescription for treating the symptoms.

Policy differences between the candidates, which seemed so vast and defining a few short months ago, will largely fade away during the general election. As the candidates vie for independent and undecided voters in the general election, they will inevitably converge around similar policies on Iraq, alternative fuel sources and mix of economic stimulus packages for the economy. And since politicians never want to make enemies, they will offer pretty-sounding but vague solutions to issues such as the deteriorating health of America's economy, education system, public infrastructure, technological edge, housing market and global competitiveness.

In truth, there is some product differentiation in our Kmart special of policy platforms. Senator McCain will look to simpler designs of market-based reforms, playing down the recognition that access to high-quality education and home ownership are the key determinants of economic opportunity and prosperity, both of which have moved beyond the grasp of the average American. Senator Obama prefers the layered look of regulation, skirting the fact that government intervention is rarely neutral and that raising taxes and redistributing wealth does little to create the incentives to promote investment and capital liquidity necessary to jump start the economy.

In the end, though, policy differences between the candidates will narrow, and the tightening polls suggest that the election will be won or lost not on policy positions but on personal and partisan characteristics: Who is most capable of leading the country during these challenging times and returning America to the path of growth and prosperity? And which party do voters trust to make good choices that may be unpopular in the short run but benefit all in the long run?

Given the nature of U.S. electoral politics, the next president will take office with only a razor-thin electoral margin, with no clear mandate. Whether the candidates can lead or not will depend greatly on their ability to build bipartisan coalitions around areas of common interest. These are hard qualities for voters to judge in the best of times, and U.S. campaigns—with their emphasis on competition, contrasts and gotcha-style negative campaigns that hide the underlying compatibility of the candidates' policy positions—give them little help when making this crucial choice.

 

O'Halloran is the George Blumenthal Professor of Politics.

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