How far back should a candidate be held responsible for his statements?

[Captain_Amazing]

Everybody sit back, and let the Captain tell you a story.

About 20 years ago, there was a guy…let’s call him Bob. Bob was in his thirties and getting his master’s degree in public policy and his law degree from Regents University, and in order to do that, Bob had to write a thesis. So Bob decided his thesis would be about the the way that the decline of the traditional family has led to all sorts of social problems, and an analysis of the Republican Party’s position on the family and how the Republicans can restore the traditional family to society.

So, Bob writes his thesis, and he goes after feminists, women working outside the home, single mothers, gays, the great society, inheritance taxes, and basically how liberalism has really messed society up. He says that government needs to take action against cohabitators, fornicators, and homosexuals, and should stop doing things like subsidizing child care.

Well, whatever you think of his positions, the thesis is good enough for Regents University, and Bob gets his degree. He then gets involved in politics, getting elected to the state legislature, and then becoming state attorney general. Bob then decides he’s going to run for governor, and he runs as a center right candidate, because the state he’s running in is a center right state.

Then, all of a sudden, his thesis resurfaces, and some of the positions there upset the people of the state, who don’t have a big problem with women working, for instance, and claim that his positions in the thesis are totally unlike the positions he’s been taking as a candidate. Bob says, “Hey, this was 20 years ago. I may have believed that stuff back then, but I don’t believe all that anymore. I’ve supported day care, I’ve spoken out against discrimination against gays, I’ve said contraception shouldn’t be banned. My wife and daughters work, and I’ve hired women to my staff. The Bob that wrote that thesis doesn’t exist anymore. I’ve changed.”

So, is Bob right? How responsible is he, or more generally any candidate, for his prior statements and beliefs? Certainly, on the one hand, people’s beliefs change over time. I know my beliefs have changed over time, and I’m sure all of yours have to.

On the other hand, it’s very convenient for a candidate’s beliefs to change to fit that of his voters. There’s always the question of, did this person’s beliefs really change, or is he just hiding his more extreme beliefs to get votes?

So, dopers, what say you? Should Bob’s thesis sink his campaign?

[Brown_Eyed_Girl]

The question should be are Bob’s recent political actions more indicative of the current Bob he purports to be or the old Bob he says he’s grown away from. Talk is cheap. Even cheaper for politicians.

[Telcontar]

I think it matters a great deal how old Bob was at the time. People change a great deal over time, but they change far less as they get older. If mature, responsible, adult Bob wrote it, then it’s fair game to pursue and, if Bob claims to have had a change of heart, it’s fair to question why, when, and how that occurred.

If it’s something Bob wrote when he was 22, then he shouldn’t be bothered about it in more than a pro forma way after 30.

[foolsguinea]

No. I don’t want to be held responsible for every stupid thing I said in my twenties.

Or, rather, I’ll cop to having tried on a great number of stupid ideologies, but that doesn’t mean I believe them now.

Even George Wallace gave up on racial politics.

[Triskadecamus]

I would tend to judge by the existence, or non existence of refutations by the politician of his own prior positions, and written works that were published before he declared his candidacy. Such writings would be more likely to be persuasive to me than public breast beating during a campaign.

A true change of heart isn’t likely to occur after becoming a candidate for election.

Tris

[whorfin]

I think this should be held against him for a few reasons:

1. There are good reasons to believe his thesis represented his opinions at the time.

Yes, it was a while ago, but he was 34 when he wrote it. Too old to count it off as youthful indiscretion, or something he wrote before his view were fully developed. He was a grown-up.

Similarly, this isn’t a term paper. This is a master’s thesis–it’s a substantial undertaking, probably reflecting more than a year’s work. It’s something he put some time and attention into.

1a) These are pretty extreme positions.

It’s not like one could think a generally sensible person could hold them by being misdirected, or confused, or not paying attention. These are things it’s hard to believe someone endorsing unless they actually believed in them–and they are beliefs the voters of Virginia don’t share.

These are things that (one would hope) any non-hardline conservative person would stop and think “hold on a second–that’s pretty extreme” (and as many of them are attacking other groups and viewpoints, “that’s not right.”

2. It’s not fair to say he wrote it, but didn’t believe in it as a legislator.

A significant number of the positions in the thesis were positions he held, and furthered as a legislator and as attorney general.

As a lawmaker and, later, Virginia’s attorney-general, Mr McDonnell did not forget his research paper. He clamped down on abortion, resisted anti-discrimination protections for gay public employees and aligned the state government with breakaway Episcopal parishes after the appointment of an openly gay bishop.

Sins of the student

3. His attempts to distance himself from his thesis are questionable–at the least, they don’t really look like someone who never believed what he wrote. The Post reported as follows:

McDonnell brought up the paper in reference to a pair of Republican congressmen whom he interviewed as part of his research. McDonnell then offered: "I wrote my thesis on welfare policy.

I find that hard to square with his statement that he held a position in his thesis that he now repudiates. It sounds like a statement by someone who took a position that is (at least in public) indefensible, and who hopes he doesn’t get caught.

3a) He says:

“Virginians will judge me on my 18-year record as a legislator and Attorney General and the specific plans I have laid out for our future – not on a decades-old academic paper I wrote as a student during the Reagan era and haven’t thought about in years.”

As pointed out in (2), for much of his political career, he has held and supported some of the extreme positions in his thesis. His attempts to distance himself from that thesis don’t acknowledge that. That troubles me.
ETA (4) Triskadecamus has it right. As far as I see it, he’s only started to publicly and explicitly repudiate these positions after getting caught. That looks like he understands what he has to do to get elected, not a statement about what he believes.

@Triskadecamus

I would tend to judge by the existence, or non existence of refutations by the politician of his own prior positions, and written works that were published before he declared his candidacy. Such writings would be more likely to be persuasive to me than public breast beating during a campaign.

A true change of heart isn’t likely to occur after becoming a candidate for election.

Tris

[Steve_MB]

If Bob happened to include something in his thesis about how all this anti-modernity stuff isn’t really popular with the voters, so it might be a good idea to soft-pedal it until you get elected and then trot it out once in office (at which time showing “leadership” is more important that doing what the voters hired you to do)… well, then, obviously one must start from the default assumption that Bob’s claim to have changed his views is simply putting that doctrine into practice.

[wonky]

It depends.

In this particular case, I don’t see much reason to think that he has repudiated those attitudes (but I don’t follow Virginian politics).

He said offensive and stupid things. I don’t think he’s up there with someone like a David Duke or Fred Phelps, but he also never made it a point to disavow his previous beliefs.

[YogSothoth]

It depends on the extremity of what was said and how much his life since then has lived up to that. Judging from post #6, it really doesn’t look like “Bob” has become enlightened more than simply realized that he needs to appeal to a more broad section of voters.

It would take another master’s thesis repudiating everything he said before, and years of public service reflecting that to convince me.

[Brainiac]

I’d say one election cycle is enough time to change your mind.
Especially to cut off war funding you were bullied into supporting right after 9/11.
I want my representatives to be able to change their vote when the situation changes.

[whorfin]

@Brainiac

I’d say one election cycle is enough time to change your mind.
Especially to cut off war funding you were bullied into supporting right after 9/11.
I want my representatives to be able to change their vote when the situation changes.

I think you have the question backwards—I’m not sure anybody is saying representatives can’t change their minds. I thought the issue was for more what they have to do to prove they’ve actually changed their minds, and whether those prior statements should should be held against them.

So voting against the previously held beliefs, consistently and clearly, is to me the start, rather than the end of that process. It’s a way of proving their opinion has changed–it’s what they need to be doing first.

Second, I’d say in your hypothetical, that even after they clearly have changed their mind, I’d want to know why they let themselves be voting in a way they later regret–and why it won’t happen again in another context.

[silenus]

You have to keep in mind who founded the university he was attending. His thesis fit right in with what the university wanted. Therefore, he was gaming the system to get a degree. Nothing at all wrong with that.

OTOH, he attended a university founded by Pat Robertson, which should disqualify him for reproduction, much less public office.

[gonzomax]

The fact that he went to that university in the first place makes him suspect. Then the paper just tops it off. We know where he stands. He is just trying to go underground now.

[whorfin]

@gonzomax

The fact that he went to that university in the first place makes him suspect. Then the paper just tops it off. We know where he stands. He is just trying to go underground now.

Also, at least from the OP, “Bob” isn’t denying he held those beliefs when he wrote the paper–he’s denying he still holds them now. I think that admission throws the “just a paper” defense out the window.

[gonzomax]

@whorfin

Also, at least from the OP, “Bob” isn’t denying he held those beliefs when he wrote the paper–he’s denying he still holds them now. I think that admission throws the “just a paper” defense out the window.

He is a politician and wants to have a career. That would require not being seen as a Pat Robertson religious nut. That is not a big enough demographic to carry a state or national election. What else would he say? I figure he is still one of them.

[gonzomax]

@Telcontar

I think it matters a great deal how old Bob was at the time. People change a great deal over time, but they change far less as they get older. If mature, responsible, adult Bob wrote it, then it’s fair game to pursue and, if Bob claims to have had a change of heart, it’s fair to question why, when, and how that occurred.

If it’s something Bob wrote when he was 22, then he shouldn’t be bothered about it in more than a pro forma way after 30.

The OP says he was in his 30s when he wrote it.

[whorfin]

@gonzomax

He is a politician and wants to have a career. That would require not being seen as a Pat Robertson religious nut. That is not a big enough demographic to carry a state or national election. What else would he say? I figure he is still one of them.

I wasn’t disagreeing with you. I was trying to reinforce the argument you were making to reject the argument that “bob” was just trying to please his professor.