Why is the Democratic candidate always a flip-flopper? (Jonathan Chait)

[depakid]

Do you remember when conservatives used to speak warmly, and sometimes rapturously, about Barack Obama? That was back when they were certain that the Clinton voodoo magic would make Hillary the nominee, and Obama her sympathetic roadkill. Since then, the right has made the horrifying discoveries that Obama is, successively, a left-wing ideologue, a coddler of anti- Americanism, a wine-sipping elitist, and, now, a shameless flip-flopper. The man will say anything, discard any position, in order to win the election.

If such a tragic tarnishing of the reputation could happen to a fresh-faced reformer like Obama, it could happen to anybody. And, in fact, it has--at least to anybody who has happened to attain the Democratic presidential nomination at any point over the last five election cycles. John Kerry, as everybody remembers, came to be defined almost exclusively as a flip-flopper. (A 2004 Wall Street Journal news article described him as "a politician with a troublesome reputation for trying to have it both ways.")

Al Gore was relentlessly attacked by Republicans for his alleged waffling. ("Mr. Gore has a bit of a reputation for flip-flopping and corner-cutting," reported The New York Times in 2000.) Bill Clinton was attacked by George H.W. Bush for "turn the White House into a Waffle House" and the subject of a famous Time cover story titled, "Why Voters Don't Trust Bill Clinton."

It was true: Voters didn't trust Clinton--or Gore, or Kerry. In all of those elections, polls showed the Democratic nominee scoring higher on most of the issues, but the Republican nominee scoring higher on honesty and other personal qualities. Either this is because the Democratic Party keeps nominating weasels for president, time and time again, or else there's something systemic that makes Republicans (and the press) portray them as such. I'm going with explanation number two.

<snip>

And so, every four years, we have a Democratic candidate campaigning on health care, the minimum wage, education, Medicare, or Social Security, and a Republican candidate campaigning on themes like Trust, Courage, and so forth. President Bush in 2004 was explicit about his elevation of character over issues: "Even when we don't agree," he would say, "at least you know what I believe and where I stand."

The details of the Republican character narrative vary a bit from campaign to campaign. (In 1992, 1996, and 2008, Republicans waxed rhapsodic about the moral virtues inherent in military service; in 2000 and 2004, they played them down.) The alleged flip-floppiness of the Democratic nominee, though, is a hardy perennial. Flip-flopping is a simple accusation that campaign reporters can sink their teeth into. Moreover, there's always grist for the accusation, because getting to the position of running for president without changing your stance on a few issues is essentially impossible.

More: http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=bb1c215b-5350-42a5-84a3-c60059716009&p=2
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As has been said before- two can play at this game. And if ever there was a year (and an opponent) for it....

[Franks Wild Years]

1. Agreed. And...

...around debate time, I truly believe Obama will combine his verbal mauling of McCain with plenty of ads pointing out certain truths. There's no need to blow his wad while he's still on top in the polls & while there's still so much time left.

[Enrique]

2. welcome to DU, Frank

how's Carlos the Chihuahua? Never could stand that dog... :hi:

[Enrique]

3. fantastic comment to that article

I think it's a mistake to try and wrap your head around the flip-flopper charge on a literal, substantive level. Republicans are not saying, 'You shouldn't vote Democrat because this candidate tends to change his stance on positions and it's dangerous to have a president in office'-- they aren't making a predicative point about how Dukakis/Clinton/Gore/Kerry/Obama will act once they're in office. The point of the flip-flopper label is that it fleshes out a general line of character attack that's central to the Republican strategy of leveraging cultural resentments: many Americans are predisposed to vote again candidates like Kerry (especially) and Obama in the first place under the suspicion that they're latte-sipping elitists who are out-of-touch with the concerns of ordinary Americans, etc etc etc. However, this sense of resentment isn't enough to swing voters on its own-- the average voter likes to believe that he/she is a rational creature, something that's evidenced by the fact that Dukakis, Gore and Kerry were all winning their respective races in the early-to-mid going on the strength of advancing policies that were more favorable to the public. You can't simply tell people to vote against a John Kerry because he comes from more money than you do and is better educated-- voters still need a tangible hook on which to hang the coat of their cultural resentments, to speak. Enter the flip-flopper charge: by finding an issue on which the candidate has modified his position (which, as Chait points out, is practically inevitable in a presidential candidate), Republicans can extend a concrete example of how the Democratic candidate embodies all these personal and cultural traits that run antithetical to ordinary Americans: unforthcoming, calculating, dishonest, beholden to the proverbial 'Washington fat cats' and all the rest. So, in short: the flip-flopper charge is only applied to Democrats because the Democratic candidate is the only candidate who needs to be campaigned against in a coded language of cultural resentment.

Dan in Prague

[no_hypocrisy]

4. Look where the other extreme got us.

* brags that he makes his decisions from his (still pickled) gut. And he doesn't like to second guess his decisions once they're made. He's ready to go to hell and back until history proves that he was right against conventional wisdom, common sense, and naysayers. He really believes that he can see the trees through the forest.

Hail Afghanistan, Iraq, tax cuts, "It's YOUR money", Katrina response, etc.

I'd much prefer someone who realizes that he didn't have all the facts when the initial decision or opinion was made and modifies and qualifies his position accordingly.

[geckosfeet]

5. rEpublicon stateragy is to impune the oppositions character. Once

character is in doubt they don't have to debate issues, since all motives are now questionable. It is a roVian method.

[Douglas Carpenter]

6. I remember perfectly well how this was the constant mime way back in 1972

It seems to keep reappearing and reappearing.

I'm guessing that every candidate including George McGovern was simply never, ever anywhere near as far out left-wing as their opponents either believed they were or simply wanted the media to proclaim that they were and the public to accept that they were.

So, when the general election got closer and closer and the Democratic nominee tried to clarify what their actual position actually was, their Republican opponents and their servants in the media, simply couldn't handle that the Democratic nominee held and always held fairly mainstream and popular positions.

In the April 1972 issue of Time magazine, George McGovern was the prairie populist - the old fashioned small town Methodist minister and history teacher who was standing up for all the little people. A few months later he was the candidate of amnesty, acid and abortion.

This same routine has been repeated over and over and over again. And the Republican's ever cowed and obedient media was always there to do their bidding and proclaim their mime.

[karynnj]

9. McGovern was also a WWII war hero

This is a fascinating article. The thing is how do we prevent this from happening to Obama.

The McGovern example is, in some ways, the hardest to explain. He was as soft spoken and non- elitist as you can get - yet the Republicans succeeded there. With Kerry and Gore, they were both in the JFK style, people who were born to socially elite family (though Kerry was not wealthy), but took that as a reason for giving back. They both had solid careers all in the service of their country. Both had strings they could have pulled to get out of Vietnam, but didn't. That made as strong a case that there is that they did not feel a sense of entitlement because of their status, rather a heightened responsibility. The real elitists in 2000 and 2004 were Bush and Cheney.

[yellowwood]

7. Foolish Consistency

"A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds" Ralph Waldo Emerson

The question is: why is consistency always considered to be a bad thing? When a leader changes his mind, it often means that he is processing new information. I want a leader who is able to be flexible in a changing world.

Of course, there are core values that shouldn't change, but if the leader is wise, he will let his inner compass decide.

[Liberal_Stalwart71]

8. It's called projection! The Repukes are actually the ones who are flip-floppers...

from Pappy Bush's reneging on his "no new taxes" pledge to his son's proclamation that he'll smoke bin Laden out of his cage, then later exclaiming that he's not concerned and doesn't think about him. The reason why the flip-flopping charge works is because the Repuke plant the seed and the M$M reinforces it.

It is really McSame who is the flip-flopper in chief, but I blame the Democrats because they should be running ads with McSame's flip-flops, as they should have done for John Kerry. YouTube is available for a reason, use it!!!