Tell it as it is

So much for the "one-week candidate." Jan Švejnar announced that he will extend until Dec. 8 his own deadline for deciding whether to run for president. This won't increase his chances of getting elected (still minimal in our view), but it will give him time to decide what he wants to achieve. He can try to be all things to all people (including the Communists), but he'll never beat Václav Klaus at this game. Or, he can decide to tell Czechs the way it is. He'll have the ideal platform for putting aside all the political double-talk and stressing the need to get this great country in shape by cutting the waste, the corruption and the crap. It wouldn't win him many votes from the very lawmakers he was indirectly criticizing, but it would jolt some voters out of their state of apathy. If he took this upon himself and declared on Dec. 8 that he has no chance of winning but will run anyway, he'd get our hypothetical vote. [Czech Republic presidential elections Walter Cronkite doublespeak]