IN DEFENSE OF FLIP-FLOPPING

Urgent Memo to Republican Spin Machine

The "flip-flopper" charge is backfiring, and not just because John Kerry looked "presidential" the other night. The charge is misconceived. Clinton was a flip-flopper. After the Republicans stormed into Congress in 2004, he swung drastically to the right, getting advice from conservative consultant Dick Morris (who explain here why Bush won on substance, Kerry on style.) This huge flip-flop was what made his presidency successful.

A Club for Growth ad calls Kerry a weathervane. Meaning that he points in whichever direction the political winds are blowing at the time. But what's wrong with that? Although it requires politicians to be unprincipled and maybe dishonest, there's a legitimate case that this leadership style enhances democracy. Clinton knew how to listen to public opinion and adapt. Like a good salesman, he didn't just tell people what they wanted to hear, he told them what they wanted to hear and believed it. He was weak, too, and most of his presidency was a struggle with the GOP congress in which many tactical victories masked a huge strategic retreat. The Clinton years were bad for Democrats and exasperating for Republicans, but great for the country. Weathervane-style leadership has its limits, and I think we needed the restoration of courageous moral leadership under Bush, and it's done us good. But it's also been a strain, and maybe four years is enough. Tell voters Kerry is a flip-flopper, a weathervane, and some of them may think, "A flip-flopping weathervane, like Clinton? I could live with that..."

If only! Alas, what's wrong with Kerry is that he's a rusty weathervane. He can't really change his positions. Whether because he's arrogant or dumb (I'm not sure of the precise combination), he can't learn anything. He wanted nuclear freeze in 1984, he wants it now. He thought foreign war was a mistake in 1971, he thinks it's a mistake now. He wanted to solve all the country's problems with big government programs in the 1970s, and despite the intellectual sweep towards market capitalism and laissez-faire that has transformed the world since then and placed America at the head of it, he still thinks that.

Poll-tested opportunism and pragmatism is the best face of the Democratic Party. Kerry represents the worst face: New Deal/Great Society paleoliberalism, Big Government is the solution, a bankrupt governing philosophy. By emphasizing flip-flopping, the Republican spin machine is paying Kerry an undeserved compliment.