So I was lis­ten­ing to news on the radio today, and there was a “close per­sonal friend” of for­mer Min­nesota Gov­er­nor Jesse Ven­tura on talk­ing about how “the Body” is think­ing of enter­ing the race as an inde­pen­dent for the Sen­ate seat that just opened up in Min­nesota. He seems to be “angry” about the posi­tions both the Repub­li­can and Demo­c­ra­tic can­di­dates are tak­ing on the issues.

The point was brought up that even though Ven­tura hasn’t offi­cially announced any­thing, polls are putting him at about 28% of the vote right now. How­ever, he is a polar­iz­ing can­di­date, and peo­ple seem to love him or hate him. The friend said that Ventura’s best qual­ity was that “even if you don’t agree with him, you know where he stands… He speaks his mind and doesn’t sugar-​coat things.” I remem­ber Bush beat­ing that same horse into the ground when he was run­ning against Kerry, who had been painted by his oppo­nents as a wishy-​washy flip-​flopper.

Now, I respect and admire hon­esty and integrity as much as any­one else, but I’m sorry, what he said is a hor­ri­ble sell­ing point for some­one run­ning for office, espe­cially for the candidate’s “best qual­ity.” On any given day, I would rather vote for some­one who has even the slight­est chance of vot­ing my way on pub­lic pol­icy over some­one I know with cer­tainty will vote against my beliefs. That’s just pragmatism.

But even tak­ing a step back, you have to real­ize that rep­re­sen­ta­tive democ­racy is an exer­cise in group decision-​making. To be a good rep­re­sen­ta­tive, you need to be able to exam­ine mul­ti­ple per­spec­tives, be will­ing to work with oth­ers towards com­pro­mise, and to just be tact­ful. Hold tightly to your own goals, but you have to accept that change is grad­ual in our system.

Hard­line stance-​taking is noth­ing more than bull­shit pos­ing, because it’s all about the median voter.