playing" that all candidates engage in, it is thepervasiveness of this behavior - to the exclusion of any governmental considerations - that make it distressing as well as intriguing. Polarization is also apparent in this example. Since Pete Wilsonshowed no inherent loyalty toward a particular ideology, it is entirely likely that had the Republican party been drifting towards a centrist position rather than an extreme right-wing position, Wilson would have accordingly been more moderate in his political pronouncements. The polarization towards an extreme is what caused him to make such radical changes in his beliefs. It is, of course, difficult to tell to what extent political intransigence is a conscious strategy, or an unconscious motivation toward power, but theend result is the same - political leadership that is not conducive (or even relevant) to good government. The role of competition in our political system is an inherentlycontradictory one. We accept the fact that politicians must compete ruthlessly to gain office using whatever tactics are necessary to win. We then, somehow, expect them to completely change their behavior once they are elected. At that point we expect cooperation, compromise, and a statesmanlike attitude. Alfie Kohn (1986) points out that this expectation is entirely unrealistic (p. 135). He also states that, "Depriving adversaries of personalities, of faces , of their subjectivity, is a strategy we automatically adopt in order to win" (p.139). In other words, the very nature of competition requires that we treat people as hostile objects rather than as human beings. It is, therefore, unlikely, once an election is over and the process ofgovernment is supposed to begin, that politicians will be able to"forgive and forget" in order to carry on with the business at hand. Once again, in the recent government shutdown we can see this same sort of difficulty. House Speaker Newt Gingrich, whose compe...
