Flip-Flop

What keeps politicians honest? A lot of people would answer that question with a heartfelt “not a cotton-picking thing!” Over the last few years a series of political scandals have given us the popular view that politicians are nothing more than a collection of liars and crooks. Sometimes I agree with that particular idea rather vocally… however, while there will always be plenty of dishonest people in politics, most American politicians don’t end their careers by being arrested and marched out of their offices in handcuffs. So, other than the threat of upset voters, what makes politicians keep their campaign promises? Once again the answer is “absolutely nothing”. The only thing going for the voters is that they can make an educated selection from the candidates being offered up by the various political parties, mostly by looking at the candidate’s history, his voting record on important issues, and listening to what he says in the here and now. There are warning signs that a politician may not believe in what he says publicly of course, but those are signs that observant voters can look for. One of those is “flip-flopping” on various issues. If a politician can change his “views” without a good explanation during a campaign, voters can be pretty sure that what he is telling them is nothing more than a momentary political expedient. If he doesn’t hold his views strongly, voters sure can’t trust the politician to keep his campaign promises, or to support the position of the people he hopes will vote for him.

In the last few days, charges of flip-flopping against both presidential candidates started flying thick and fast. For Senator McCain, the flip-flop is his proposal to resume offshore drilling. As the Washington Post pointed out, “McCain's announcement is a reversal of the position he took in his 2000 presidential campaign.” Well, OK, while his switch has the environmentalists weeping and wailing, he also states that a policy which made sense when gasoline was about a buck a gallon doesn’t make much sense with gas at four bucks a gallon.

The charges against Senator Obama have been more numerous and difficult to explain. An Obama primary campaign slogan was “Only Barack Obama Consistently Opposed NAFTA”, and that the threat to “opt-out” could be used as a “hammer” to force Canada and Mexico to "renegotiate" NAFTA. But, on the flip side, Obama said that he was “not a big believer in doing things unilaterally’ and that he wouldn’t force a renegotiation of NAFTA. His explanation for the change in position was that "Sometimes during campaigns the rhetoric gets overheated and amplified." Still, Obama’s senior economics adviser, Austin Goolsbee, was caught telling Canadians that Obama didn’t really mean his promise to renegotiate the treaty. For Democrats the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) was a position in which no compromise was allowed. In September, Obama’s campaign claimed he would "support a filibuster of any bill that includes retroactive immunity for telecommunications companies." But recently Obama switched and supported the FISA compromise which granted telecom companies legal amnesty. Democrat party activists are calling Obama’s switch a “disaster.” Last year, Obama’s stance on Public Financing of Presidential Campaigns was loudly applauded for his dedication to saving public financing of presidential campaigns. Numerous editorials tore into Obama’s opponents for not making the same promise. The excuse for his now breaking this promise is that “The public financing of presidential elections as it exists today is broken, and we face opponents who have become masters at gaming this broken system.” Still, he hasn’t explained why the system is any more broken now than it was last fall.

So John McCain is now against the federal ban on oil drilling in coastal waters, and Barack Obama is not going to accept public campaign funds… The jury is still out on whether McCain made the proper political move in changing his drilling views, but in Obama’s case it’s simple, he’ll now have more campaign money to spend than McCain, and right now money is extremely important to politicians.

One internet source of the candidate’s states positions is “Project Vote Smart” (located at http://www.votesmart.org/index.htm ). After spending hours wading through their statistics and questionnaires, I’ve found the following about the two leading candidates;

Obama’s claimed stance on abortion is that they should be legally available in accordance with Roe v. Wade, and apparently he has little else to say on the subject. In the case of affirmative action he claims to support taking race and sex into account in college admission, public employment, and government contracting. On crime control he says he favors penalties other than incarceration for some non-violent offenders, increased funding for inmate rehab programs, and funding for juvenile offender “boot camps”. Under the heading of Economy and Employment he favors low interest loans for starting, expanding, or relocating businesses. (A few years ago I’d have loved to have seen that happen!) He’d also like to see an increase in job training programs. On the Environment & Energy chart he wants to require cleaner burning fuels, and supports industrial “self auditing” to clean up pollution.
Sen. Obama’s stance on government reform is interesting even if uncommitted. He’s undecided on term limits at the state level, undecided on requiring a balanced federal budget, supports campaign finance disclosure and partial funding for state level campaigns. On firearms issues he supports banning the sale or transfer of all semi-automatic weapons, increased restrictions on purchase and possession of firearms, and of course he would require child safety locks to be provided by the manufacturer. In the area of Health and social issues he wants to ensure basic health care through managed care, insurance reforms, and state funding. He also seems to think that the states should increase their funding for most federally mandated social programs.
Senator McCain would support abortion when pregnancy results from incest or rape, or when the woman’s life is endangered. He would prohibit “partial birth” abortions and public funding of abortion clinics. On budgetary, spending, and tax issues he would pretty much maintain the status quo, with a slight increase in defense spending. Apparently however, Mr. McCain supports the Presidents tax reduction issue. He hasn’t said much about campaign finance and government reform issues. He does support the death penalty, prosecution of minors as adults when charged with violent crimes, mandatory prison time for drug dealers, and vocational training programs for prison inmates. On education issues he supports national standards for students, school vouchers, charter schools, teacher testing and merit pay, and school infrastructure and technology improvements. For social security he would allow individuals to invest in and manage their own private retirement accounts. Responding to employment and affirmative action questions he would increase funding for national job-training programs that re-train displaced workers, and reduce government regulation of the private sector. Not much is said about affirmative action. On environmental issues he supports the Clean Water and Clean Air Acts, along with healthy forests legislation. He would also require compensation for land owners when environmental regulations affect the use of their property. In firearms issues he would strengthen enforcement of existing gun laws, allow concealed carry, and protect licensed gun dealers from lawsuits by crime victims. He supports stem cell research with existing stem cell lines, supports a “Patient’s Bill of Rights”, and limiting punitive damages in medical malpractice suits.

With regard to International Aid, Policy, and Trade Issues, McCain’s said that “While implementing reforms, our nation should participate in U.N. peacekeeping operations when defense of our national interests and values calls for such action, provided the U.S. maintains operational control of our forces. Aid should be granted to countries when extraordinary circumstances cause disaster and threaten civilian lives.” And that “Aid should be granted to countries when it is in the security interests of the United States.” As expected he supports the War in Iraq and Afghanistan, and continuing sanctions against North Korea and Iran. He opposes allowing Law Enforcement agencies greater discretion in “spying” on American citizens, but in the same breath supports Homeland Security. Nor does he rule out pre-emptive strikes on other countries when evaluated on a case by case basis. Sen. McCain apparently supports NAFTA, GATT, and the WTO as well.

So, there are the stated positions on various issues. Now of course we’ll see if the candidates continue with those beliefs, or if they just “tell the crowd what they want to hear”. Character and honesty will show through I suspect, if it’s there at all.