Right-wing politicians can sometimes implement policies that left-wing politicians cannot, and vice versa under Cowen and Sutter’s only Nixon can go to China theorem:
The point is that politicians with a previous record of opposing a policy shift are often the only ones who can bring it about, because their policy support provides a credible signal of policy quality to the relevant interest groups who would otherwise oppose the policy.
Contemporary wisdom has it that only Nixon could go to China and make a deal because his decades of fierce anti-Communist stance gave him credibility with fellow conservatives and shielded him from any domestic attack.
Cowen and Sutter say that a policy could depend on information – on which policies or values everyone could potentially agree, or on which agreement is impossible.
Politicians, who value both re-election and policy outcomes, realise the nature of the issue better through inside and secret information and superior analytical skills (or access to those skills), whereas voters do not have access to such information base or skills.
Only a right-wing president can credibly signal the desirability of a left-wing course of action. A left-wing president’s rapprochement with China would be dismissed as a dovish sell-out. Nixon must be going to China because that is the best possible policy choice and he would never do so otherwise giving his previous record of firm anti-Communism.
Left-wing parties adopt right-wing policies because they are good ideas that will get them re-elected. Bob Hawke, Tony Blair, and Bill Clinton were centre-left economic reformers who can credibly signal the desirability of their economic reforms because of the brand name capital they invested in distributional concerns and protecting the poor.
Only right-wing Republicans such senators Rand Paul and Ted Cruz can introduce mandatory sentencing reform without been accused of being soft on crime. They must be doing it because it is right and just.
The same goes for marijuana decriminalisation, the decriminalisation of medical marijuana and right to die bills in the New Zealand Parliament.
Only a right-wing party, a party perceived as extreme right wing, and tough on crime such as the ACT party can introduce such bills and win a majority.
Although the ACT party is proudly and consistently socially liberal, the voting public does not perceive this and only sees it’s tough on crime image.
Taking advantage of that misperception will allow many National party MPs to vote for such bills introduced by the ACT party MP, David Seymour, without looking like a selling out to the Green Left who just want to smoke dope under the pretext of medical marijuana. Only ACT can win enough votes in the New Zealand Parliament to pass bills to decriminalised medical marijuana and allow the right to die.
Utopia, you are standing in it! 
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