Nothing drives me more nuts than a politician who talks process instead of engaging voters directly. [...] Just saying that we should do something or we need to do something is not the same as doing it. And it's a big reason why people are confused about what we stand for.

If they think that we should be tougher on national security, they shouldn't say "we can't win elections until we reassure people that we can keep them safe." They should say, "here's how we'll keep you safe..." If Vilsack really thinks that Democrats will lose if we don't support unconstitutional domestic spying programs then he should just say, "I think the program is probably legal and I support it." A winning message is a winning messsage, right? Why all the navel gazing?

I suspect that he knows most Democrats don't support his stance. But then perhaps he ought to think about how to convince us that we are wrong on the substance of this argument instead of appealing to us on this issue of "winning." Maybe we can be convinced. [...] It's this meaningless "we must convince people" process mush that will ensure that nobody knows what in the hell he actually believes. And that's the biggest problem most Democratic politicians face.

Bloggers and blog commenters who are political junkies indulge themselves in exploring lots of options for political tactics and strategy, which means that we're prone to making a lot of statements about process and electability and what needs to be done to win elections, but there's hardly a case when you don't know for damn sure just what their bottom line is, what they believe in and stand for -- that's one of the points of blogging, to stand on the mountaintop (or the balcony or the milk crate or in the dark back alley, depending on the popularity of your weblog) and let the world know what you think about things. Few bloggers would be blogging if they didn't have that impulse.

Politicians have a lot of motivations for doing what they do, and I wonder if the urge to represent, to let everyone in on what you believe, is high among them, or whether, for some of them, it's included at all? It may be that too many of them don't really feel the urgency to tell the world what they really think. It can, after all, be very dangerous to a politican's career to be too honest and forthright.