Jon Chait follows up on his brilliant TNR column on the vacuousness of Senate moderates with a blog post in which he impersonates a moderate trying to avoid taking a position on where to go to dinner:

My wife: Do you want to go out to dinner?

Me: I don’t think there’s enough of a consensus on a restaurant.

Her: Well, why don’t you suggest a place you’d like to go?

Me: We’d just go to a Japanese restaurant, and I hate Japanese.

The underlying problem is that most politicians in the contemporary era enter politics at least in part because they have strong views on public policy. That seems to be less true of moderates, who therefore tend to allow themselves to be dragged along by the prevailing political tides, which they cautiously navigate with an eye toward reelection* and avoiding primary challenges. In principle, moderates can take tough stands and make bold votes, but it’s rarely observed in practice.

* In fairness, moderates often have more competitive seats, but longtime incumbents like Olympia Snowe are basically safe and still take almost no political risks.