Just like what happened when Bush got the job? Obama won the Nobel peace prize before he was president because people believed so strongly that the problem was Bush. "If we just get a sensible president in, he will fix everything!"

American politics goes from yin to yang every 8 years because that's was people expect. The media polarizes every thing. Your average person laps it up. "Those damn conservatives/liberals are ruining everything. How can they be so stupid/naive?". We must make America great. We must make America whole. :-P

People believe that it is their duty to vote: we must keep the democrats/republicans out of office! Or you could waste your vote on someone who can't win. As a measure of protest, perhaps. Or maybe if they did win once... then you would have 3 parties. Then 2 would gang up on 1. Or the third will split the vote.

If you wish to stop war, don't get sidetracked on people. That's how you will be defeated, because it's easy to swap people around like a game of 3 card monty. Concentrate on the issue, not on people, parties or politics. Don't simply cast a vote and say, "Well, I tried". That's how you lose.