Regardless of your political affiliation...do you personally fear the political and idealogical divisiveness?
Giving an ubiased answer would be nice. And I can--but its going to sound biased, sorry. Here goes, anyway: Some years back--particularly strting with the 2000 presidential race, the political strategists of the GOP--notably Karl Rowe, stated publicly that they intended to (and did) adopt a strategy of "wedge issues" to craft a majority to gain power, and, in Rowe's own words, establish a "permanent majority" (one-party rule, in other wordes). Regardless of what one thinks of this strategy, it is, as a matter of historical record, the culmination of a gradually building "culture war" (as many have termed it) launched by the more right-wing conservative groups in America. A "fromal" starting point could be the founding of the "Moral Majority" by Jerry Falwell earlier (1977)) but that was only the first major example of this trend. I do not fear a continuation of the current polarization. It started with these "neoconservatives" and reflected their rise to power. And it will fade away as the process of removing them from power continuses. We are already seeing the first small indications of this as the players in both parties are concentratig on conducting a very civil (comapared to recent contests) both because they must to avoid alienating voters--and because most are realizing the American people are sick and tired of the hate-mongering. To date, the only ones who don't seem to be getting themessage are the more extreme elements of the GOP right wing. Not surprising--the problem started with them. NOTE--I am NOT castigating the GOP or conservatives in general--we are talking about a small minority even within theRepublican party. I don't, sad to say, expect we've seen the end of the attempts to polarize America. When we reach the stage of the gernal election campaign, you can expect this same group to launch a hate campaign directed (not too subtly) at either Clinton's gender or Obama's race--that will make the "swiftoating" of the last two elections seem mild by comparision. If that happens (and though I'm no McCain supporter, I don't think he willl be a party to this) it will backfire and result in a Democratic landslide-- bigger than will probably be he case anyway. But in the processs, it will also serve to finish discrediting this extremist element of the right that has been the source of the divisiveness.