And that may have consequences that reach long past the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November. Now that each party ostensibly has a common opponent, when it comes time to close ranks and look toward the White House, they appear unable to do so. I want to beat my opponent. But I want to destroy my enemy. Opponents leave the campaign able to govern.
Enemies leave the campaign unable to even endorse one another.
This is the very real aftermath of attack campaigning. Such a mean season of escalating rhetoric and lengthening knives cripples government. Ask any member of Congress who was not a freshman after the 1994 Republican revolution and she or he will tell you that it is next to impossible to do the work of crafting thoughtful legislation anymore. The new crop of legislators rode in on such a wave of vitriol that the bipartisan compromises necessary to get anything done can't be made. The syndrome extends to the freshmen coming into power after the 1998 election, too.