Centrism
In politics, centrism is a political ideal where policies landing in the middle ground between different political extremes are promoted. Most commonly, this is visualized as part of a one-dimensional political spectrum landing in the middle between left-wing and right-wing politics. However, there is more than one dimension to politics, so even the center has its own radicals as exemplified by radical centrist politics.Centrism is important because it applies to very large swaths of the populace. In general, members of the public tend to identify themselves independent rather than as left-wing, right-wing, or any other political extreme. Politicians of many parties try to appeal to this supposed center, although many pundits find fault in this approach. Candidates using centrist politics to gain wider appeal often lose support from the more idealistic members of their political parties and may find themselves strongly agreeing with opponents in debates. Also, voters can become confused about how different candidates stack up when they seem to be very similar in many ways. This was a major contributor to the controversial outcome of the 2000 presidential election in the United States (also exacerbated by polarization among voters, a fairly different phenomenon).