Errk, I did that because the attribute is set to `""` if a custom message is given , for example: 

```coffee
@validate 'field', presence: true, message: "You gotta put a value there!"

```

But I'm not sure that was the right choice.  Rails puts the message with the field name with a custom message, for example:  
```ruby
validates :name, presence: true, message: "has to have a value!"
```

I prefer the custom-message-has-no-field-name implementation, but it's not Rails-y. What do you think?

If we stick with that, maybe the right thing to do is change the `if` above to be `if attribute =='base' or !attribute`. That seems like a better way to solve the problem.