re: How should a politician vote - conscience or constituency

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Best representation of his/her constituency...

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This.

This does not mean literally sticking a finger in one's mouth and gauging the temp of every decision, but generally speaking if a "representative" is voting in ways that are contrary to the wishes of the people they are "representing" than they are not much of a representative.

The counter may be that merely voting a person in gives them carte blanche to vote as they see fit, since voting them in can be seen as the population turning over their representation to that individual. But I think that's fairly cynical, and is usually espoused by representatives that desire going off the reservation and want to vote against the known will of their constituency.

In Cassidy's case, his vote was cast solely because he'd just been re-elected and he cynically decided that if he was going to run again voters will have forgotten this vote in 6 years. Had this vote taken place last summer, there is ZERO chance he votes to convict...as he would have been far more responsive to the wishes of the people he represented when they could more directly effect his future.