The May primary election will provide many pointers and clues about what probably (or might) happen in the November election. Ohio will choose a governor, but that is of less significance to a nation at war than where voters will put their trust in who leads.

   It has been widely reported that the White House staff has been given a good shaking up. One reporter called the reorganization a third term of two years for President Bush. This is all well and good, but what you have not heard is that President Bush has reorganized his basic policies in response to the latest polls. Yes, he sees the polls, but this president is not one – unlike many in Congress – to be a weathervane in the winds of public opinion.

   The American educator Lyman Bryson asked this question in the last century: “What are leaders for? Why do we need leaders in a free country? I would answer that the leader’s function is to help determine, in any crisis, which of our possible selves will act.”

   Those “selves” are either honest, persevering, and true to their values; or they are full of self-doubt, wavering and more concerned with pleasing the crowd than pushing policies through to conclusion. And the presidency these days faces crisis after crisis – the war on terror, Social Security bankruptcy unless reformed, energy, natural disasters, etc.

   Nobody can claim that the “good self” is perfect. Mistakes are human. This president has made them. Is he less of a leader as a result? One answer to that question was given by Natan Sharansky, a one-time Soviet dissident, in a Wall Street Jouirnal article recently. “With a dogged determination that any dissident can appreciate,” Sharansky said, “Mr. Bush, faced with overwhelming opposition, stands his ideological ground, motivated in large measure by what appears to be a refusal to countenance moral failure.”

   What this year’s elections will begin to tell us is whether the American people are convinced, or can be convinced, that American foreign policy should be pro-active in promoting democracy around the world and bringing freedom to victims of undemocratic regimes. The alternative is the dominant policy of the late 20th century which – partly because of our isolationist past – put a higher priority on negotiation and conciliation. That alternative means ending the war ON terror and beginning the defense AGAINST terror.

   Polls cannot carry out policy. They can only measure how the public reacts to a policy, and leaders can either give in to it (which Winston Churchill never did) or they can persuade, cajole and ask for trust and understanding. President Bush has shown in almost a term-and-half that he is a stubborn cajoler.

   Perhaps he read Walter Lippmann’s essays on politics. The late political pundit (he died in 1974) was especially impressed by the 1960s civil rights struggle. About polls he wrote this:

   “The notion that public opinion can and will decide all issues is in appearance very democratic. In practice it undermines and destroys democratic government. For when everybody is supposed to have a judgment about everything, nobody in fact is going to know very much about anything.”

   Blogging enthusiasts take note. Fearful politicians, please copy.

   William Wild is a retired newspaper editor and lives in Oakwood, Ohio.