Political commentator John Hood (here's a link that will be obsolete tomorrow) offers some useful words on political debates, and contrasts two approaches:

"At one pole, you have the shrill, mindlessly partisan, intensely personal style of political invective that has unfortunately become ensconced in some of the broadcast media and blogosphere. At the other pole, you have the namby-pamby, shades of gray, can’t-we-all-just-get-along approach that attempts to define differences way in a seemingly endless stream of weasel words and psychobabble."

True enough. What caught my eye was the word play in the next sentence.

"Neither serves the public interest. Neither keeps the public’s interest."

How so?

"The shrillness gets boring after a time, like watching the fourth or fifth season of a sitcom where the characters are all fixed in stone, the jokes are repetitive, and the put-downs obvious and absurd. And the namby-pamby is intentionally boring, right from the start, as a strategy to mute debate rather than air and resolve it."

The best path is to be willing to accept and even welcome significant differences in opinion without resorting to conspiracy theories, name-calling, and always thinking of the other side as living in bad faith.

Due to the qualities of human nature, that's easier said than done.