It’s easy to blame politicians for their inability to come to some sort of compromise on the issues facing the economy. And they surely deserve a good portion of whatever obloquy is heaped upon them as they posture and subordinate the national interest to narrower and often baser goals. But politicians respond to voters, and voters are just about evenly divided on most issues, a fact reflected in the more or less neck-and-neck race being run by Barack Obama and Mitt Romney on the road that leads to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

The closeness of the race leads to two strategies. The first is to sling as much mud as possible, a reasonable approach since negative ads seem to be effective. The second is to find some issue that a vast majority of voters find attractive, and is something that will wrong-foot the opponent.