Public Outreach, Warts and All

It's been just three days since Virginia's Democratic Gov. Tim Kaine launched a Web site soliciting Virginians' ideas about how to spend the economic stimulus money the state may receive. As of Friday afternoon, 1,274 projects (and counting) were posted on stimulus.virginia.gov.

What's striking about the comments is that the vast majority are a sincere attempt to recommend a project that could generate jobs. Critics of soliciting online opinions from the public on public policy issues argue that the government would receive mostly vapid responses. For the most part, that hasn't been the case for stimulus.virginia. Many of the ideas call for the state to undertake construction projects, mostly for transportation and schools. One project asks for the state to use the stimulus money to add more lanes to interstates 81 and 64. Cost: $50 million. Bath County Public Schools asks that the state "purchase high school track, bleachers, softball field, and field house." Cost: $2.632 million.

What's missing are a lot of rants, political talk, insensitivity or just plain silliness.