[Porsche-O-Phile]

So many of the political threads on here come down to the following series of questions:

When should a politician/elected representative take a stand against his/her constituency? Is this ever appropriate?

When an elected official does take a position on an issue that is in dramatic contrast to the opinion of his/her constituency, at what point does this stop being "conviction in one's beliefs" and start being "bull-headed obstinance"?

Finally, looking at the number of problems created/perpetuated by "career politicians" and bureaucrats, does anyone else believe that perhaps it's time to concede failure of the "representative democracy" form of government and instead try to push for a governmental model that's more directly democratic?

Discuss. Hopefully this will make for some interesting debate.