darth_ender said:

And honestly I think the ability to simultaneously hold ideas in your mind that you don't necessarily believe is a valuable trait.

It won me a scholarship one time back when I was in high school. I was in the BofA scholarship regional finals, which is (or at least was, back then) a debate-style panel with the other dozen or so contestants. We were given a question to debate, and when I saw it, I knew right away that most of the others would be arguing for a particular point that I happened also to believe in. I made a conscious decision to argue the other side, even though I didn't believe in what I was arguing for. The debate ended up being everyone versus me, and since I held my own, I stood out and thus emerged the winner. That's the only time in my life that I have done that... it felt really risky, but I'm guessing that's what politicians do all the time.