You can think of a politician’s political priorities as running roughly in this order: Win reelection Win the majority Shape governance as much as possible Governing comes third not because politicians are cynical, though they often are, but because you can’t govern at all if you don’t win reelection, and you can’t govern effectively from the minority. Even so, if winning the majority becomes impossible, then the priorities look like this: Win reelection Shape governance as much as possible
