IN PRAISE OF SPECIFICITY. I'm rather a big fan of ambitious preschool initiatives, so props to the Hillary team for coming out with one. There are few more cost-effective interventions than early childhood education, and it's got the added benefit of being a social program that's not opposed by massively powerful, invested interests.

Speaking of major policy proposals, I'm in predictable disagreement with Mark Schmitt's advice that candidates should keep big policy ideas to themselves. And I'm not only in disagreement with it as political advice -- there's no better time to construct public support, understanding, and momentum for a proposal than during a presidential campaign -- but I disagree with it procedurally.

Since I'm not one of those omniscient political strategist types, I don't know whether candidates should, as an instrumental issue, offer detailed policy plans. I have my opinions on the matter, but they're delivered from the safety of my armchair. What I do know is that the media and the voters should demand specificity of some sort or another. Mark writes that, "the key questions about candidates and health care are whether they are willing to pick a fight and who they are willing to fight with. Are they willing to challenge insurers? Are they willing to challenge those elements of the business lobby that will resist higher taxes or an employer mandate? Indeed, the key to health care is not designing the system, but figuring out what fights to pick and how to win them. But it is folly to pick those fights before one is in a position to win them.""

But from the perspective of a voter, it's folly to cast a ballot till I know which fights my candidate is willing to pick. Even if there was evidence that waiting on proposing a detailed health care plan would increase its chances of survival -- and I think the Clinton fight, where the bill came late and then was skewered before the administration had time to explain it, points to the contrary -- I wouldn't be comfortable with candidates concealing their bottom line policy beliefs from me. That isn't to say that I need 50 pages of white paper with an exact subsidy scale and thoughts on departmental reorganizations, but I need to know if a candidate thinks community rating is essential, if a public insurance option is something they'll fight for, if they'll step beyond universality and make cost control an issue. Without access to that knowledge and some sharp, publicly offered commitments, I'm voting blind.

--Ezra Klein