I’m 40 right now, my opinions have evolved and will continue to evolve throughout my life. I’m not ashamed of it and actually think this is a main sign of humanity.
If that is so with most adults, why the obession with being consistantly conservative? Why the obsession if Romney thought one way years ago and now thinks the opposite? Why can’t he, and other politicians, own the “flip flopping” and explain that their opinions evolved? Would that be so hard for the voters to comprehend?
Second corrolary question. Why can’t a candidate say “whereas I think one way about social issue X, if elected I will nonetheless uphold the Constitution &/or the will of my constituents who voted me in to office and pay my salary”? In other words, what a candidate thinks about social issue X really shouldn’t matter, if said president would have no capacity to institute change. Candidate may really be against abortion, but current law of the land says it’s legal.
I understand the voters want to know who is getting their vote, but personally I would love this kind of honesty and straight talk from my candidate.
I really can’t say anything other than I agree for the most part. While talk show hosts etc can make a pretty funny schtick out of composing people’s opinions from 2004 with what they said yesterday, I’ve always gone “he could have, y’know, CHANGED HIS MIND.” People’s opinions don’t stay static, and they don’t have to come out and say “I used to think that way” for every single thing (I don’t remember everything I’ve ever changed my mind on in the last decade).
At the very least though, I know Obama has been called out on a few of his old choices which he passed off as “the mistakes of a junior sentaor,” which is close enough to admitting you changed your mind.
That said, flip-flopping IS a problem when candidates say wildly disparate things within the same campaign depending on state/audience. It happens, perhaps not too often, but I wholly support calling out politicians on that.
On your second point, people get elected to change the laws of the land. As for representing the will of the constituents, do you mean the majority in a given poll? What about the people who voted for you who differ on that issue? Or the people who didn’t vote for you but who are your constituents?
It would be difficult to convince people that you wouldn’t vote your conscience on an issue, but you’re otherwise a good person to vote for, especially if they had an alternative.
Because we hold presidential candidates to higher standards than ordinary people. It’s not that it’s wrong for a presidential candidate to have held different views in the past, but isn’t it reasonable to investigate why they held those views, and what made them change their mind? This is someone who voters may have to consider entrusting with immense power, after all. They are entitled to know what the candidate’s views are, and why they hold them.
The distinction between personal belief and one’s view of what is enforceable as policy or law doesn’t seem to make the cut, at least in political coverage or among less cognitively subtle voters.
An informed shift in either aspect is fine. However, rack up a sufficiently large number of shifts and the sense may be that these shifts are not real, but produced per game theory. If this is the case, the voter can’t be sure of what exactly it is that they’re getting.
Everyone would love more honesty from politicians. That’s one reason Ron Paul polls as high as he does-- people don’t see him as pandering. He has a consistent message, and he doesn’t care if it’s popular or not.
But “flip-flopping” is not the same as having a position that evolved over time. Flip-flopping, I think, implies political opportunism. Romney says his views on abortion and gay rights have “evolved”, but he doesn’t make much of a case for the mechanism of that evolution other than “I needed to change my position in order to be more electable”.
ETA: I guess I should have said “nominatable” instead of “electable”. He’d probably be more electable in the general with the more liberal views, but he wouldn’t be nominatable in the primaries.
I can accept a politician who sincerely changes his opinion on a matter based on new evidence/research/whatever. These things do really happen. Taking myself as an example ('though I’ve never been in politics), I used to believe in the existence of the Christian god. I don’t now.
I cannot accept a politician who decides that he needs to “change” his opinion based on what the latest polls say. Using myself as an example again, I’d be flip-flopping if I suddenly decided to start going to church on the off chance I might get a promotion. That’s not a change in opinion, it’s lying to make yourself more presentable.
I think the main hit against Romney is that his views on a variety of issues have “evolved” away from the types of somewhat liberal positions necessary for a Republican to get elected as governor of liberal Massachusetts, and towards more conservative positions necessary to have a run at the Republican presidential primaries.
Mere coincidence?
Doubtful, especially since he’s never really explained why his positions on a variety of issues have changed.
The more obvious explanation is quite simply that he changes his position to get elected - so what are you getting if you vote for him and he does in fact get elected?
Depends on the issue and more so on the party of the person. Democrats can more readily forgive one of their own for changing positions but it’s the kiss of death for a Republican to change his mind on a key issue. My theory is that Democrats are not single-issue voters and will vote for someone who is on the opposite side of a wedge issue if they think he’s basically on their side. Republicans are more prone to subject their own to litmus tests. For example on abortion, any pro-choice history puts you in the enemy camp. I don’t think anyone would care if someone changed their mind on say energy policy, but if you have ever gone against Republican orthodoxy on any wedge issue you cannot be trusted.
The other problem is that the Republicans coined the flip-flopping concept when they ran against John Kerry, who had merely engaged in typical legislative maneuvering and compromise. That’s what effective politicians do.
Mitt Romney has gone from pro-life when he was a Mormon priest, to pro-choice when he ran for Senator and back to anti-abortion when he ran for President. He supported tough gun laws in Massachusetts and advanced the 2nd Amendment when he ran for President. He said he wasn’t for Reagan/Bush in his Senatorial run and now praises Reagan to the sky. Etc., etc. Basically Romney matches that caricature that they sketched of Kerry, just as three time marriage champion Gingrich is utterly lacking in personal character – a quality that Republicans have pretended to care about for years.
But none of that is really the issue. The underlying concern is that you have to be either crazy or insincere to run for the Republican nomination today. Crazies become wildly popular before they implode. Sane candidates have to either paper over their knowledge like Romney or be passed over like Huntsman.
It seems to me that a LOT of people have a few issues they are very invested in.
For example, there are some people who are adamantly pro-life (or anti-abortion if you prefer) and they are intent on electing candidates who support this position.
They want to know that this candidate will continue to hold this position and fight for it throughout their term, anything less would be a betrayal of the worst kind for them.
If your views happen to evolve over time due to new experiences and deeper introspection, great, that’s part of being human.
If these new views HAPPEN to align EXACTLY with the type of people who you are trying to win votes from, you’re a crass opportunist who would believe that I have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you if you thought it’d win you my vote.
You can call changing your views as being overly opportunist and political, or you can call changing to be what your party/constituents need. Mormons for example are anti-tobacco, but I haven’t seen anybody say that if elected the Mormon president would declare war on the tobacco industry. So again, somebody can have their own personal views, but that’s not necessarily what they will do if elected. I don’t see the flim-flammery in that.
Just because you believe in something personally, doesn’t mean you have to believe in it professionally. I just don’t think we should hold a candidate up to some kind of impossible standard. I want my president to be human and to really understand what it’s like and to have empathy for other points of view. I think that might be too complicated a concept for a 30 second soundbite, which is what most people will base their vote.
The flip-flopping accusation goes back to the Clinton years and probably much earlier. When Clinton ran against Dole, there was a cartoon showing them at a movie theater - Clinton was lined up for “Flipper” and Dole was going for “Mission Impossible” (funny stuff!)
At least 1890 apparently. Arguably in concept multiple centuries. Not everything political ( probably very little that isn’t technology-based ) was invented in the last twenty years.
You need to be able to explain it better than “I changed my mind” and you need to be able to explain it better than “I changed my mind on these 12 issues diametrically in the past 3 years now that I’m running for national office rather than in my state (city, district).”
Changing your mind is a good thing, if you do it rarely and if it was difficult and embarrassing to do so (and if you acknowledge that). One of the most notorious flip-flops in American history, and one of the bravest, was Bobby Kennedy’s coming out against the war in Vietnam only a few years after being one of the architects of that disaster. When he spoke about that change in position, he didn’t just handwave it away, as do so many of these pols accused (rightly) of flipflopping for obvious strategic electoral advantages.
Now, it happens that RFK WAS accused of flipflopping on Vietnam for strategic electoral advantages, but I think he handled those accusations well: he embraced the chance to discuss in detail how and why and when he changed his mind, he spoke with great pain about his realization that he’d been wrong, or how the government had prolonged and intensified its hawkishness after he’d left it, and so on. RFK had obviously changed himself, and grown, since the days (just five years earlier) when he’d been a tough, close-cropped Cold Warrior, but I had no doubt he’d truly changed. I see no such signs of genuine growth in Mitt Romney or Newt Gingrich.
Evolving your views is not the same thing as saying whatever the audience you are pandering to wants to hear. Romney does the latter. He said what people wanted to hear when he was running to the left of Ted Kennedy in MA, now he is saying what they want to hear when he runs to the right of Perry, Gingrich and Cain in the GOP nomination.
Robert Byrd was a flip flopper. He was a member of the KKK and helped filibuster civil rights legislation in the 60s, then reformed himself later. That is an evolution in thinking, and is laudable. But his goal wasn’t to pander and win votes by being disingenuous from what I can tell. George Wallace eventually started to speak out against segregationism because his views evolved. Malcolm X reformed his positions towards the end of his life, etc. Those are good examples of peoples views and opinions evolving, despite the fact that they may face more hostility from voters and supporters, not less.
Also I think ‘flip flopper’ is a double entendre meant to imply sexual impotence and that the candidate isn’t ‘a real man’. Kindof like wind sailing.
