Here’s another reason dirty, underhanded, partisan political campaigns are good: the real world.
Make all the pretty rules you want, keep the campaign as clean as you like. And as soon as the winner of that Polyanna fantasy enters the ring of real world politics, he (or she) will get clobbered. Because the leaders of other nations, CEOs, and every other power player out there doesn’t care about playing nice. They play to win. The only thing that keeps international (or even national) politics from getting too ugly is the fact that everybody has something to lose, and sometimes it comes down to a game of chicken. That’s why the best ( or at least, the most enduring) politicians tend to be the ones who surface from the toughest nomination fights, and the roughest election fights.
People may talk about how they want clean politics, but they always want a brawler in their corner.
