# Please explain what's wrong, in general, about flip-flopping on issues **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [December 17, 2011, 12:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-explain-whats-wrong-in-general-about-flip-flopping-on-issues/606516 "2011-12-17T12:07:21Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![constanze](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f9ae1b/32.png) [@constanze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/constanze)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2011, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-explain-whats-wrong-in-general-about-flip-flopping-on-issues/606516/21 "2011-12-18T17:24:03Z")
> [@diggerwam](#): > > 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? Flip-flopping IS NOT equal to Changing your opinin because you learned new facts or changed your moral. The former is pandering to what people want to hear. It means changing your “opinion” several times again, not based on evidence, facts, careful consideration etc. but on what polls say. Opinons not based on morals/ ethics or on facts are hard to predict and make a person unreliable in a way - they won’t go with what is right, but with what is popular. (Somebody who is proud of never changing is opinion is displaying a similar kind of dumbness: evaluating your opinion when new facts come along is a sign of an intelligent adult; stubbornly clinging to an opinion in face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary just for the sake of being consistent is stupidity). > [@](#): > > 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. Because voters are dumb, and appealing to that wins elections better than trying to educate them, esp. with the ways the media in the US are. ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2011, 10:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-explain-whats-wrong-in-general-about-flip-flopping-on-issues/606516/22 "2011-12-18T22:44:04Z")
To be quite honest, I really don’t care what the candidate believes, provided I can suss their behavior in office. Here’s a prediction: if Romney is elected President, he won’t nominate a liberal pro-choice jurist to the Supreme Court. But if he was elected Senator from Massachusetts, he might have approved such a candidate. So what? And heck, I want a deal cutter in office. (I acknowledge that mine is a minority POV – though nobody expects CEOs to give honest appraisals of their company’s prospects to the press. They are expected to be cheerleaders, though admittedly the SEC punishes certain kinds of false statements.) The National Review endorsed the Mittster. NR understood that while Romney may be a transparent phony (my characterization), the political environment is what really matters: > [@Ramesh Ponnuru](#): > > And, Mr. Ponnuru argues, Mr. Romney emerges from a Republican Party that “now features a remarkable degree of programmatic consensus.” > > “The narrowness of the candidates’ differences on pertinent issues militates in favor of picking the one who can best implement the sensible agenda they largely share,” he writes. “It also reduces conservatives’ need to worry about candidates’ sincerity. If President Romney were to do an about-face on carbon caps, the right to life, or taxes, he would be going to war with the vast majority of his party.” [National Review Senior Editor Ramesh Ponnuru Endorses Romney - The New York Times](http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/12/02/high-profile-conservative-endorses-romney/) To me personality and even “Character” are secondary issues. > [@LC\_Strawhouse](#): > > 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!) > [@Tamerlane](#): > > 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. Good responses. I was thinking of the high profile given to flip-flopping during the 2004 Republican convention. I trust the accusation is old. But it happened to be a main theme against Kerry, awkwardly and in my view dubiously. But for Romney, it’s pretty close to an objective observation. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2011, 12:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-explain-whats-wrong-in-general-about-flip-flopping-on-issues/606516/23 "2011-12-19T00:28:41Z")
As others have posted, flip-flopping is a particular subset of changing your position. It’s when you change your position due to political expediency. And that’s the reason voters don’t like it. If you changed your position once because of political expediency, what will happen if future political expediency makes it advantageous for you to change back? Voters who feel strongly about a position want somebody who they feel will stand by that position even when it is disadvantageous for them to do so. ---
**Author:** ![CandidGamera](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/candidgamera/32/2878_2.png) [@CandidGamera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CandidGamera)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2011, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-explain-whats-wrong-in-general-about-flip-flopping-on-issues/606516/24 "2011-12-19T14:46:57Z")
Changing one’s mind is fine. Changing one’s mind back and forth several times is a warning sign that one is either hopelessly indecisive and inconstant, or misrepresenting one’s views. Even changing one’s mind once can be suspect depending on the certitude with which you profess your beliefs. If you say you believe adulterers should be burned alive, and then later get caught in an affair and say you’ve discovered it’s better to forgive such trespasses - well, that’s a little damn convenient. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2011, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-explain-whats-wrong-in-general-about-flip-flopping-on-issues/606516/25 "2011-12-19T19:08:28Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > Everyone would love more honesty from politicians. Except the voters. If honesty was such a turn-on, honest politicians would win their races, as opposed to the current situation where honest talk gets you denounced by competitors, pundits, and an electorate that wants to believe in sugar plum fairies. And even Ron Paul has changed his views on issues including certain popular forms of federal spending (i.e. student loans), drug policy and taxation (it appears that rather suddenly he has decided that we can hold onto the federal income tax awhile longer). One suspects that this is less a matter of “evolution” than of the realization that if he ever wants to expand his following beyond a limited hard core, he’s got to [del]flip-flop[/del] mature his outlook. ---
**Author:** ![puddleglum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puddleglum/32/137_2.png) [@puddleglum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puddleglum)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2011, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-explain-whats-wrong-in-general-about-flip-flopping-on-issues/606516/26 "2011-12-20T14:57:04Z")
This is because of the principal /agent problem. The voters are electing a representative to promote what the believe in. However, a politician has every incentive to maximize their own personal popularity at the expense of the people who elected him. This is especially true for primary voters because the candidate will have to target indenpendents in the general election. The voters only get one chance to elect someone every four years. If the person is only telling them what they want to hear and will change his mind once he gets in office there is nothing they can do about it. Thus voters need ways to assure themselves that what the candidate is promising is what the candidate will try to deliver once in office. A long history of consistency is one thing a candidate can show voters to let them trust him to faithfully represent them. For example if a candidate presents himself as a figure above partisanship who is trying to unify american against cynicism and politics as usual and then governs as just another partisan hack there is nothing that the voters who believed him the first time can do to stop him. Long histories of consistent action are a much better guide to future actions than campaign promises which we a politician can discard whenever it is convenient to do so. ---
**Author:** ![Jragon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e19b73/32.png) [@Jragon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jragon)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2011, 3:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-explain-whats-wrong-in-general-about-flip-flopping-on-issues/606516/27 "2011-12-20T15:04:15Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > As others have posted, flip-flopping is a particular subset of changing your position. It’s when you change your position due to political expediency. And that’s the reason voters don’t like it. If you changed your position once because of political expediency, what will happen if future political expediency makes it advantageous for you to change back? Voters who feel strongly about a position want somebody who they feel will stand by that position even when it is disadvantageous for them to do so. The problem isn’t the real bona-fide definition of flip-flopping, though. I think most people would provide the definition. The problem stems from the fact that if a candidate says something in '04 and then something different tomorrow, the news stations will be all over it with clips of the politician contradicting himself. The way things are currently “flip-flopping” is news-speak for “changed his mind since 1985.” ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2011, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-explain-whats-wrong-in-general-about-flip-flopping-on-issues/606516/28 "2011-12-20T15:12:20Z")
If a Democrat changes his views, it is flip-flopping. If a Republican does, it is growth and development. Or maybe the other way around. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![Zeriel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/58956e/32.png) [@Zeriel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeriel)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2011, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-explain-whats-wrong-in-general-about-flip-flopping-on-issues/606516/29 "2011-12-20T17:02:23Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > If a Democrat changes his views, it is flip-flopping. If a Republican does, it is growth and development. > > Or maybe the other way around. It’s the reasoning and support for the view change that matters, not the party affiliation. So few people understand that. Fewer still want to understand it of those other guys. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2011, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-explain-whats-wrong-in-general-about-flip-flopping-on-issues/606516/30 "2011-12-20T18:16:29Z")
The first problem is that flipflopping/pandering is obvious, and to the blatantly-pandered-to it is an insult to their intelligence. The second is that campaigning is largely a matter of earning the electorate’s trust, and flipflopping/pandering shows you to be untrustworthy. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2011, 5:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-explain-whats-wrong-in-general-about-flip-flopping-on-issues/606516/31 "2011-12-22T05:14:36Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > 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. Problem is (and I saw this as the point of the thread) even position changes that truly can be put down to an evolution of perspective on an issue are _called_ “flip-flops.” ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2011, 5:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-explain-whats-wrong-in-general-about-flip-flopping-on-issues/606516/32 "2011-12-24T05:44:24Z")
> [@kaylasdad99](#): > > Problem is (and I saw this as the point of the thread) even position changes that truly can be put down to an evolution of perspective on an issue are _called_ “flip-flops.” Do you have any examples? I know I don’t use the term that way: if you have an explanation that makes sense, I don’t call it flip-flopping. ---
**Author:** ![diggerwam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/919ad9/32.png) [@diggerwam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/diggerwam)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2011, 12:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-explain-whats-wrong-in-general-about-flip-flopping-on-issues/606516/33 "2011-12-24T12:01:32Z")
Original poster here. I just don’t see politicians embracing evolving viewpoints. Some politicians will bend over backwards to claim they actually are consistent (looking at you Romney) when simple owning the change and explaining why would be so much more beneficial. Whether that change came from just getting older and wiser or if it comes from wanting to represent your constituents better makes no difference to me. Just fess up and own the “flip flop”. ---
**Author:** ![pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a9a28c/32.png) [@pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pseudotriton_ruber_ruber)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2011, 12:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-explain-whats-wrong-in-general-about-flip-flopping-on-issues/606516/34 "2011-12-24T12:42:18Z")
That strategy will work for a single flip-flop. Or for two. Maybe for three. But for Romney? Not credible. ---
**Author:** ![Farmer\_Jane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Farmer\_Jane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Farmer_Jane)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2011, 12:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-explain-whats-wrong-in-general-about-flip-flopping-on-issues/606516/35 "2011-12-24T12:59:19Z")
I think politicians should vote their conscience. I don’t like the “I don’t believe in abortion, but SCOTUS said it’s legal…” shit. There other things (Dred Scott?) that the Supreme Court said was legal. It sounds very weak when you take away “abortion” and put in a progressive cause. Most of the time, flip flopping is when you’re being a hypocrite or pandering. Not because your opinion actually evolved. To the Republicans’ credit/defense, Howard Dean pegged Kerry as a flip flopper pretty clearly in the primaries. There wasn’t a lot of ‘evolving opinion’ so much as ‘Senator Kerry was voting like he was running for President’. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2011, 4:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-explain-whats-wrong-in-general-about-flip-flopping-on-issues/606516/36 "2011-12-28T04:32:55Z")
So you don’t want congresspeople to uphold the constitution? When SCOTUS says something, that means that’s what the Constitution says. Unless you are proposing an amendment, any vote for something unconstitutional is null and void. Congress cannot nullify Roe v. Wade, no matter what their conscience tells them. ---
**Author:** ![AndyLee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/898d66/32.png) [@AndyLee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AndyLee)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2011, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-explain-whats-wrong-in-general-about-flip-flopping-on-issues/606516/37 "2011-12-28T18:12:24Z")
While flip flopping shouldn’t be wrong, basically it gives people an out. It’s like the guy you k now who is a complete fuck up and thinks he should be forgiven, simply because he’s now sorry. Yeah it’s easy to be sorry, after you had the fun of telling everyone else. Like my beef with Obama was he said, things to beat Hillary he knew he could never pull off. He knew they were lies, that people wanted to hear. When elected he back peddled and all was forgiven. ---
**Author:** ![madmonk28](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madmonk28/32/20811_2.png) [@madmonk28](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madmonk28)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2011, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-explain-whats-wrong-in-general-about-flip-flopping-on-issues/606516/38 "2011-12-28T18:42:34Z")
> [@diggerwam](#): > > …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… When he was running for office, Governor Kaine of Virginia said pretty much this on the death penalty. He is Catholic and his opponent was suggesting that Kaine wouldn’t enforce the death penalty. ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2011, 12:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-explain-whats-wrong-in-general-about-flip-flopping-on-issues/606516/39 "2011-12-29T00:06:24Z")
> [@pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](#): > > 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. RFK was also grilled over his statements against the death penalty, when he had earlier supported it. He simply answered, “That was before I read Camus.” A pity we have so few thoughtful, candid politicians anymore. ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2011, 4:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-explain-whats-wrong-in-general-about-flip-flopping-on-issues/606516/40 "2011-12-29T04:43:28Z")
Let’s turn away from Romney for a second. The reality is, on the subject of abortion, a LOT of politicians, Democrats AND Republicsn, have switched sides to make themselves more electable. Yes, Mitt Romney has conveniently realized he’s against abortion now that he’s running for the GOP nomination. George H.W. Bush, among others, did the same. But loads of liberal Democrats conveniently changed THEIR minds too- the list includes Richard Gephardt, John Sharp, Al Gore, and Jesse Jackson, among others. So… does flip-flopping for the sake of political expediency ALWAYS turn your stomach, or only when the flip-flopper is turning away from your side? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-explain-whats-wrong-in-general-about-flip-flopping-on-issues/606516.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-explain-whats-wrong-in-general-about-flip-flopping-on-issues/606516.md?page=3)