No country for bold men

You might imagine the idea of political courage to be challenging and noble. John F. Kennedy found it compelling enough to write a famous book on the topic more than 50 years ago. The brave politicians he celebrated in "Profiles in Courage" included some surprising -- one might even say courageous -- choices for a young Democratic senator preparing to run for president. For instance, Kennedy wrote admiringly of Republican Sen. Robert Taft's principled opposition to the Nuremberg war trials in 1946.

In California's budget crisis, the meaning of political courage should be a straightforward matter: a politician's determination to do the right thing even if it antagonizes his party's base. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger recently did that when he indicated that he was open to a combination of tax increases and spending cuts to close the state's $14.5-billion budget deficit, a departure from his previous insistence that only the latter was an option. Columnists and political observers applauded the governor for growing in office.

Schwarzenegger's three Republican predecessors -- Pete Wilson, George Deukmejian and Ronald Reagan -- have also been recently praised for their willingness to take on their GOP political bases by raising taxes to close budget shortfalls during their administrations. The plaudits came from commentators who do not usually sit in the cheering section for conservative Republicans.

State Democrats can also antagonize their party's base. Before voters overwhelmingly approved Proposition 13 in 1978, for instance, Gov. Jerry Brown stayed on message, calling the property-tax-cutting initiative a "consumer fraud, a rip-off, a legal morass and a long-term tax increase." The state's educators and public employee unions, key Democratic constituencies, echoed him. The state school superintendent said Proposition 13 would cause class size to grow to 60 students and "do nothing short of destroying education in California."

After the vote, however, Brown campaigned for reelection that fall as a "born-again tax cutter" determined to make Proposition 13 work, a message that infuriated his base. There were heated debates at the time as to whether Brown was showing political courage or placating tax-cutters. Thirty years later, the topic can still ignite an argument among Californians.