One answer–consistently–has been political correctness. In 2008, John McCain avoided making the racist Rev. Jeremiah Wright, a campaign issue because he was afraid of being accused of race-baiting. More recently, Republicans have declined to impeach Obama for flagrant violations of his oath of office, partly out of deference to his status as the nation’s first black president. Liberals complain Obama is treated worse because of his race; if anything, he is treated far more leniently.

Netanyahu has fewer hangups about political correctness, as in his 11th-hour warning about high Arab turnout (which, as it happened, never materialized). The warning was not racist, as his opponents charged–not when several members of the Joint Arab List are hostile to the state itself, not when the media spent weeks predicting high Arab turnout would doom the Likud. It was, however, an ugly and divisive warning. Bibi did it because he values winning above artistic impression.

A simpler answer is that winning elections begins with solidifying your political base. (Win first, compromise later.) Zionist Union led because it had unified what is left of the center-left in Israel. Netanyahu’s late appeal to the fractured right was simple: join, or die. Many of his new seats were cannibalized from other right-wing parties that would have supported him anyway. Netanyahu realized he needed more than their coalition agreements to win; he needed their voters and their seats.