As the election season reaches its peak, the following passage from George Will?s One Man?s America might offer us a useful perspective:

[T]he greatest threat to civility ? and ultimately to civilization ? is an excess of certitude. The world is much menaced just now by people who think that the world and their duties in it are clear and simple. They are certain that they know what, or who, created the universe and what this creator wants them to do to make our little speck in the universe perfect, even if extreme measures ? even violence ? are required.

Will wrote these words in 2005, and one suspects that Iraqi insurgents were on his mind. But the same passage could apply to those political partisans today who expect too much from their chosen political candidates.