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In [[politics]], '''centrism''' usually refers to the political ideal of promoting [[moderate]] policies which land in the middle ground between different political extremes. Most commonly, this is visualized as part of the one-dimensional [[political spectrum]] of [[Left-Right politics]], with centrism landing in the middle between [[left-wing politics]] and [[right-wing politics]]. However, there is arguably more than one dimension to politics, so even the center has its own radicals as exemplified by [[radical centrist politics]]. Centrism, in terms of its reliance on majority opinion, shares some ideals with [[
Centrism is important because it applies to very large swaths of the populace. In many countries, most members of the public tend to identify themselves as independent rather than as left-wing, right-wing, or any other political extreme. Politicians of many [[political party|parties]] try to appeal to this so-called [[Vital Center]], although many [[pundit]]s find fault in this approach. For example, candidates using centrist politics to gain wider appeal risk losing support from the more idealistic members of their political parties. Also, centrist candidates may find themselves strongly agreeing with opponents in [[debate]]s, potentially confusing voters as to how they stack up. This may have contributed to the controversial outcome of the [[U.S. presidential election, 2000|2000 U.S. presidential election]] in the [[United States]] (admittedly aggravated by [[Polarization (politics)|political polarization]] among voters, a fairly different phenomenon).
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