Patriotism - effective?

I think that patriotism is an effective campaigning technique. It gets many messages across. A few of the possibilities are: I know where you are coming from, I am in this for you, I am just like you and believe in the same things that you believe in, and I understand what you are saying. When the candidate talks about patriotism, it makes the listener feel like they are part of a whole. Also, using the concept of religion is very effective many times in a national campaign because the majority of people in a nation are religious in one way or another.