This apparently got John Kerry in trouble. What I don’t get is why it’s a bad thing; can’t a politician say “I have changed my mind and opinions” without it being a mortal sin? I can see doing too much of it, but it seems that every time someone comes out with a view that is diffirent than what he/she had a few years earlier, it gets jumped on as ammo. Maybe I’m naive-can someone educate me?
It’s like this: If a politician takes a stand and finds out that his constituents disagree with it, he has two choices:
(1) Change his position, which makes him a flip-flopper with no moral convictions
(2) Stand by his guns, which makes him a traitor to the people that “hired” him
Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.
As I’ve heard it, the implication is that the flip-flopper is changing their public position for political gain or to back out of a previous promise rather than because they’ve “seen the light”.
Of course, there is honest changing of one’s opinions due to new information or new perspective.
Alternatively, there is changing of one’s opinions because one obtains some benefit from advocating a different conclusion, regardless of one’s actual beliefs on the matter.
The problem with being labeled a flip-flopper is that voters can’t trust you. For example, if a candidate says "I am pro-choice and believe that women should be able to get abortions on demand, no questions asked’. So lets say I decide to vote for this person, then they flip flop and say “I’ve had a change of heart, and I now feel that abortion is a sin and should be outlawed.” As a voter, I’d feel betrayed.
People want to be confident that if they vote for someone based on particular policies, that the candidate will not “change their mind” later and become a candidate that they would not have voted for.
I know this thread may have been meant to be a general one but I’d like to comment on flip-flopping as it relates to McCain’s campaign.
If, as McCain does, you think your record of going against the Republican party line makes you a maverick by bucking the Republican party platform trends (90% agreement is not bucking the trend) and you run on that self-characterization, that’s sort of okay.
When you then change your mind again in the current election and it appears you are doing it to garner votes by returning to those positions you previously bucked, that’s might also be okay (new knowledge, moving towards the center, etc).
However, once you do that, you either (i) are not a maverick, like you say you are and/or (ii) you’ve branded yourselfas a flip-flopper by doing so, because of your own previous self-characterization.
My candidate will occasionally reevaluate the situation and modify his position intelligently.
Your candidate is a flip-flopper.
Also, people look for leadership (or indicia of leadership) in their politicians. Indecisiveness is not a strong/forceful/masculine trait, in most people’s eyes (yes, I know that sincerely re-considering one’s position and then changing it is an alternate explanation for how you could go from X to Y, but that’s not the explanation your opponent will focus on).
As has been alluded to, changing solely for political expediency has a cynical overtone to it. One example is taking different positions before different audiences. Al Gore’s sudden discovery that abortion was a fundamental civil right, and not a form of infanticide, happened somewhere along the road not to Damascus, but between appealing for election in rural Tennessee and appearing with Barbra Streisand at a Hollywood fundraiser. What a coinkydink!
Having said all that . . . I think flip-flop has become a sort of kneejerk reaction that gets shoehorned in to any discussion of your opponent’s allegedly inconsistent (or, just allegedly “bad”) positions. I think this is just because, well, it has worked against people such as Kerry. Remember those “Obama Waffles” from a few weeks ago? The turban and Aunt Jemima thing were relatively un-funny jokes. But the “waffle” part, I just didn’t get at all – what is/are the issues on which Obama is supposed to have waffled? I can’t recall any significant ones. Is it now just a generic term of dis-approbation?
To me, the distinction is if the position is rationalized: (i.e., “Since converting to Catholicism, I have have re-thought my previous position on abortion…” or “Soon after it was discovered that there were no WMDs, I have changed my position on funding the war, without clear evidence that this war has a compelling basis…”) But to say “Now I’m for regulation, after decades of insisting that strict and vigorous deregulation is the way to build this economy…” is simple opportunism.
It is expected that a prez will come in with solid convictions and a definite purpose in mind. When Kerry said I voted for it after I voted against it, I knew he was cooked. McCain seems to get away with it. If you are right ,you do not need to change.
Key point: In the OP, you said “Politician.” The majority of politicians (e.g., City Council, State Senate, U.S. House of Representatives…) are basically advocates for a geographical area, whether you call it a ward, a county, a district, a state, or whatever. Their job is to represent that constituency. It our Representative says X and the people in his district say Y, I believe that it’s his duty to change his position and say Y, because that’s what the people he represents want him to do. That doesn’t count as flip-flopping.
It’s different for a leader like the President, a Governor, or a Mayor. They’re elected because of what they are, what they believe, and what kind of a record they have. They’re expected to be consistent.
And yet that most infamous of flip-flop wasn’t even a flip-flop. Kerry was in favor of a bill to fund the overseas military operations, but only if the Bush tax cuts were rolled back a little to pay for it. A subsequent version of the bill lacked that provision, so he voted against it for that reason. How is that a flip-flop?