I change my mind whenever I feel like it on some things, and on others whenever my understanding changes due to new facts.
Politics, however, looks down on people who have open minds because they cannot be trusted to do the wrong thing no matter what.
One man’s “flip-flopping” is another man’s “heeding the will of the American people”. If we really want politicians that represent their constituents shouldn’t a certain amount of flip-flopping even for political reasons be expected?
Buck. That’s precisely the point I’ve been trying to make. Instead of denying the flop, embrace it and be forthcoming about why you did it. You may lose some people but others will wind up respecting you more. If you have an interview for a job you tell the potential employer what they want to hear whether you believe it or not. You will become the person you need to be to get that job. The American public is the employer in thus case. Why try to pretend otherwise?
To use an example of (possibly) a “Good” flip-flop, why not look at Mitt Romney’s Dad?
For those who’ve forgotten, Mitt’s father George Romney was the Republican governor of Michigan and a contender for the GOP Presidential nomination in 1968.
Now, like most Americans, he strongly supported the Viet Nam war in 1964, but unlike most of the leading Presidential contenders, he had turned against it by 1968.
Sadly, he was rather inarticulate in explaining his reason, and all anyone remembers today is that he claimed he’d been “brainwashed.” That made him look like a flake, and it pretty much killed his chances.
Thing is, I’m ALMOST certain that what George Romney MEANT to say was something like “The Pentagon sold me a bill of goods, they told me the war was going well and that we’d win and come home in a few months… well, now I know the war ISN’T going well. It’s a fiasco, and we need to get out.”
SUPPOSE George Romney had said something like that. Would that have been contemptible “flip flopping” or an admirable case of observing the realities of the situation and changing his stance?
The cynic in me wants to say that getting elected is more style than substance, and flip-flopping just doesn’t exude the right persona.
People want to imagine their leaders leaving the womb with a concrete plan for america, and never wavering.
But in truth I think being fairly steadfast is a good characteristic for a leader. If you’re not making a clear decision, or if you’re often changing your mind, then you aren’t leading.
And this can be worse than just deciding something suboptimal (obviously within reason).
Neither. It would still have been what it was, an admission of being easy to fool, or perhaps of being too damn lazy to ask the right questions of the right people and insist on right answers. That’s what killed his chances.
One of the Kerry “flip-flops” cited by the Bush campaign in 2004 was that Kerry had opposed the death penalty under all circumstances through most of his career, but had come to support the death penalty for terrorism. This “flip-flop” occurred in 2002, before he was running for president. So if 9/11 made you rethink any of your positions with regards to terrorism, you are a flip-flopper. I also recall quite a bit of attention given to statements Kerry made as an antiwar activist in 1971.