You cover politics long enough, you are compelled to put aside your rose-colored glasses but try not to lose hope.

You write about the dysfunction in D.C. or Carson City, and it wears you down. You wonder if it’s never about the policy at all, always about the politics, the optics, the next election.

I know what you’re thinking: When did I get to be so Pollyanna, so naïve, so…insipid?

Bear with me. There’s plenty of line space here for even more depressing remarks.

As I watched events play out last week in my two favorite capitals, I couldn’t help but see a parallel between the fizzling out of the American Health Care Act and the sudden disappearance of a controversial Nevada immigration bill.

Advocates of these initiatives – one to erase Obamacare and the other to stand up for the Fourth Amendment – will likely not appreciate the linkage. But in both cases, a legislative leader decided discretion – or protection of political viability – was more important than having a robust policy debate and letting the votes fall where they may.

Some will find delicious the scene of House Speaker Paul Ryan pleading with President Trump over chicken and brussel sprouts not to force a vote on the AHCA because of vulnerable members and the potential damage to GOP ranks. Ryan having to trudge to 1600 Pennsylvania, votes not in hand, to plead with the president he had once disavowed but is now tethered to surely inspired Schaudenfreude among many Democrats.

Fine.

But.

The D.C. elite have gushed for years about Ryan’s policy chops and commitment to worthy change over political gain, so how to explain him not calling for a vote? And these same folks who voted dozens of times to repeal Obamacare under the previous president -- with no political cost and no hope of passage -- can’t muster the courage to stand up for the cause now?

In any other venue, it would be called cowardice; in Washington, it’s called smart politics.

Closer to home, The Indy’s Megan Messerly broke the story of Senate Majority Leader Aaron Ford abruptly pulling from the calendar freshman Sen. Yvanna Cancela’s bill designed to prevent Metro from asking suspects for their immigration documents. You don’t have to do much between-the-lines reading to see that the eleventh-hour entombment was done without Cancela’s consent, because of firm opposition from law enforcement, and with some measure of political calculation.

Some may (and will) say the issue does Democrats no good -- or, specifically, that it does Ford, a possible candidate for the state’s highest law enforcement job, no good. And maybe that is so.

But if you claim to be the party that stands up for those who cannot stand up for themselves, if you are a lawmaker who spent an entire campaign cycle pummeling Trump for wanting to round up undocumented immigrants, shouldn’t you follow through now that you have control of the legislative levers of power? Are Nevada Democrats, from Ford on down, seriously going to shy away from forcing Republicans to declare on the floor of the state Senate that they are fine with a body of law that allows cops to stop people and say, “Show me your papers”?

Let me be clear: Neither of these instances is bereft of nuance.

The GOP health care bill was rushed through and had a mélange of sometimes contradictory provisions that alienated both left and right. The only reason it was headed for a vote before the Trump/Ryan el foldo was that the president said he alone could fix it and would do it tout de suite.

Ryan was handcuffed to the radiator. But he made no attempt to find a key, did not struggle to escape, called out to no one for help. Worse, he decided that surrendering and not putting members on record on the issue they had all run on in 2016 eclipsed his duty – yes, duty – to hold a vote.

As his new boss would say: Sad!

Ford’s situation is not much different. He co-sponsored the original version of the immigration measure, which had 10 of the 11 Democrats names on it and was much stronger in its first iteration. This past week, Cancela worked with law enforcement and changed the bill to simply codify what Metro’s policy is now: Don’t ask for immigration status on unrelated calls and stops.

But the cops still think the measure presents untenable strictures on how they do their jobs, and they fear a loss of federal funding if they essentially thumb their noses at ICE (which they claim to be doing already).

If they are sincere in their belief in the measure, Democrats should find a way to replace those federal funds and include language that still gives the police a certain degree of latitude. But with Ford nemesis Michael Roberson saying this is the worst bill in the history of creation and his caucus perhaps getting skittish, Ford chose to pull a bill he believes in, just as Ryan did.

No, this is not black and white, and yes, leaders have to lead. Part of Ryan’s and Ford’s job is to protect their caucuses politically, which is their explanation, I’m sure, for doing what they did. I get that.

What they don’t seem to get is that the slow erosion of the credibility of elected bodies -- and the homogenization that makes Republicans and Democrats virtually indistinguishable from one another -- is largely caused by genuflecting to political considerations as opposed to pushing for what they (supposedly) believe in, even if they lose the policy war. Politicians all claim to dislike the other party for putting politics over policy, right before they put politics over policy.

If you don’t stand up for something, you will stand for nothing.

There’s plenty of time left in both legislative sessions. If Ryan & Co. really believe Obamacare is in a death spiral, imploding or exploding (I can’t keep it straight), then how do they not push for a solution? And if Ford & Co. really care about the disenfranchised and the voiceless (I think this is the cliché they use), how do they let Cancela’s efforts wither on the vine?

My rose-colored glasses are still in the drawer. But if I give up hope that politicians will occasionally stand firm in their beliefs and not just act on expediency, and that Ryan and Ford may yet do so in the weeks ahead, it’s time to put away my laptop and go sit on the beach.