That's basically why I got involved, then more involved, and am now helping run campaigns—the fear of making a wrong move &c is basically caused by the electoral system (same as in the US), you can't afford to alienate the middle ground swing voters, your supporters and campaigners are less important to you, etc.

I, um, studied the maths on that as part of my degree, very scary stuff.

In Ireland and other sane countries, this is lessened because the system is more reliant on your actual supporters not the middle ground. So I got involved in campaigns to change to that system.