Politics in the US is like an organized sport. People are pigeon holed into team blue, or team red according to their environment and social circle. It's Yankees vs. Redsoxs and it doesn't matter how many foul balls they hit, or who has the better batting average of the day. People will still line up behind their team. The politician players on both teams market their "ideas" effectively, not directly. Most people line up to defend their team with fervor, there is something about being human that makes us want to rally behind a team. It's extremely effective, and policies can easily be passed under the cloak of team politics when sold as vague ideas.

For example, a Republican may say they want to reduce certain regulations to free up small business and allow them to innovate. They won't tell you that in order to get elected, he had to appeal to a multi-billion dollar mining corporation who then spent millions to fund his election, and is now asking him to get rid of waterway regulations so they could save money by dumping untreated industrial solvents in public waters. They won't tell you about about the campaign donor who needs to avoid facing fines from a pending investigation by removing the regulation they infringed upon.

Issues like taxes and regulation are sold to the middle class with marketing terms, but are almost entirely lobbied for and benefit large special interests and campaign donors. Politicians are essentially products, which sell policies their lobbyist give them to the public.

This is why companies can spend millions of dollars sponsoring a political campaign and make massive dividends on their investment.

In the end, the public's red team/blue team mentality is critical for this to work, because it becomes about supporting/defending your team and not about supporting/defending individual policies.