We hear a lot from our senate candidates in Rhode Island about how they are going to stand up to the “special interests” in Washington. But how, exactly, does one do that? This article from Slate talks about why this doesn’t happen much.

The breakdown in the possibility of a politician standing up to the special interests seems to be aided and abetted by the middlemen — the lobbyists and the congressional staffers — who “help” our elected officials make decisions. This “help” is often not based on what is right or wrong, but on what will make their boss’s continued political career viable. Will this vote kill your fundraising connections in Washington? Will that vote alienate you from your constituency?

I had this fantasy recently of trying to get our senate candidates to answer hypothetical questions on how they would act in various ethically dicey situations. The goal of this would be to expose the moral decision-making process of the candidates, to help the public understand how they might operate. I was thinking of really stripped down moral questions like ones used by the educational psychologist Carol Gilligan, such as: Your wife is sick with a disease that can be cured with a certain drug, but you have no money (what? a political candidate with no money? I know, it’s like a question from another planet) to buy this expensive drug. What should you do?

After reading the above piece in Slate, I realize how silly it would be to try to ask such a question. No candidate in their right mind would actually answer. They would give it to their campaign manager, who would call their PACs in Washington, and after several meetings in dark, smoky clubs, a few golf games, and some free tickets to sporting events, they would get back to us.