While policy space has been instrumental in political observers' ability to visualize and to theorize about important issues in American politics, it is unable to provide complete and adequate answers to several basic questions. Why might this be? The implication of previous critiques (notably, Stokes 1963) has been that the logic behind spatial thought is incorrect. If citizens act because of habit, psychological attachments, candidate image, or a vague sense of who might better handle valence issues, then portraying politics in spatial terms is unhelpful and misleading. Habits, psychological attachments, and images cannot easily be placed on a spectrum running across a meaningful space. What would the poles of such a spectrum be labeled? Analysts, according to this line of thought, would be better off projecting from respondents' previous attachments and behavior rather than forcing people into some type of space.

Though policy space may not provide answers to many of the core questions of American politics, throwing out spatial theory because of the failings of policy space would be tantamount to throwing out the baby with the bathwater. The problem is not spatial theory itself, which, after all, is only a way of contrasting preferences and perceptions; the problem is the sole reliance on policies. If, as we argued in Chapter 1, most Americans are not deeply concerned about policies, the next step is to locate features of the political system about which people are deeply concerned.