Positioning a political party MK II

Great Debates
1

(To moderators: Please close the old thread, it got too derailied to attract genuine posters)

Political parties face a dilemma when writing their manifestos: Do they aim for a manifesto that entirely reflects their ideology, or do they choose a manifesto that aims to win as many votes as possible?

A manifesto that entirely reflects the base ideology of the polictical party is a nice idea, but unfortunately most political people hold extermist views at heart in at least some aspects. Whilst this option might be most pure and “honest”, it is unlikely to get the party into power.

A manifesto that is entirely based on maximising the votes… Well, what can I say? It will result in a government that can truely claim to have a popular mandate, but on the other hand it will lack coherence (and will probably be self contradictory). A tyranny of the majority will result.

The answer, therefore, lies between these positions. But what is it? I solicit your ideas.

2

For practical purposes, it depends on the electoral system within which the party will have to operate. If it is in country that uses an Anglo-American winner-take-all “first past the post” single-member-district system for electing the legislature, then to have any success it has to aim at being a “big tent” party of several different factions, so its platform will have to be minimally acceptable to all of them. If it is operating in a proportional-representation system, it can make its platform more ideologically coherent and, possibly, extreme, in hopes of capturing at least some like-minded voters.