When more than 1,200 people protesting the actions of the Wake County Board of Education filled Fayetteville Street in downtown Raleigh last week, a few staff members of Governor Beverly Perdue reportedly took leave time to attend.

Perdue said she watched a little coverage of the protest from her office just a block away. She must have decided it wasn't a good idea to make an appearance at the rally, which would have energized the crowd and reinforced Perdue's wobbly standing with much of her progressive Democratic base.

But no doubt there would have been negative publicity from her appearance too, criticism from the Right about endorsing Wake County Schools' nationally recognized diversity policy and fodder for distortions in attack ads and Republican press conferences.

It's worth noting that at a banquet earlier this summer Perdue endorsed the efforts of the state chapter of the NAACP to fight the reversal of the diversity policy. That's to her credit, but she has generally been careful not to say too much about it publicly anywhere else. The decision not to stop by last week's rally is the most recent example.

Perdue's not alone of course. Conspicuously absent from most of the rallies and the public debate about the Wake County Schools have been local Democratic politicians, particularly state lawmakers.

Maybe there's no motive behind their silence, but it reinforces a troubling perception about many progressive politicians these days, that they'd rather stay quiet and hope for the best in November than defend and even promote their positions to influence the public debate.

The philosophy extends to how the General Assembly works too. The ethics legislation signed by Perdue Monday is an important step forward to increase transparency in government and restore some of the public confidence shaken by corruption scandals in recent years.

But it was crafted largely in secret, out of the reach of the public and the reform community so vigorously supporting more comprehensive changes. That's one reason the legislation doesn't go far enough.

There was never an opportunity to make the case for tougher pay to play provisions and efforts to expand publicly financed owned elections were buried under a right-wing assault that progressive reformers had little chance to counter.

Political insiders will tell you that's the way it has to be, legislation cautiously written behind the scenes because the politicians want to make sure they don't get ahead of the public.

In other words, they'd almost always rather react to public opinion than shape it, rather allow the dramatic distortions of the Right to go largely unanswered and then scramble to do the best they can without incurring the wrath of the increasingly deceived and misled electorate.

That's not a recipe for progressive policies or political victories. It's a plan that by definition becomes increasingly more difficult to execute. Opting to sit out many of the most controversial debates means they become increasingly one-sided and harder to influence the time they come around in the next election cycle.

Crafting legislation behind the scenes while the one-sided battle is raging in public helps shape the perception of the political realities that then limit the reach of the legislation. It is a self-defeating circle, no matter how strongly political consultants recommend it.

We need bold, outspoken progressive leadership now more than ever. That means showing up at rallies but it also means making the case for progressive state policy instead of cowering behind the scenes and hoping for the best.