WHERE'S THE BEEF?

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Despite these evasions, Alexander's "less from Washington" mantra is not an empty slogan. Alone among candidates, the soft-spoken Tennessean goes out of his way to dampen what voters expect. No law passed in Washington, he says, can fix the social pathologies that leave eighth-graders gunned down in a Florida school or crack babies crying in a Michigan clinic. Only community action can. He wants citizens "to get off their butts."

For the moment the man in plaid remains a paradox. On the one hand, he offers gimmicks. On the other, reality. There's no questioning Alexander's experience, savvy--and calculated caution. If he comes to trust voters enough to utter all that his sound bites hide, citizens may, to use Lamar's refrain, "know what to do."

--With reporting by John F. Dickerson with Alexander