Whether you’re running on a treadmill or for American president, flip-flops can be dangerous. In the last fortnight both candidates for
president have been
accused of pursuing this deviant activity. First, McCain announced
support for offshore oil drilling (a position he had opposed in his
2000 race) then Obama revealed that he would opt out of the public
financing system after all.
The sandal has its origins as far back as history records – indeed a 10,000 year-old pair were found in Fort Rock Cave, Oregon – and although the association with politics is more recent, politicians have been changing their minds since time immemorial too.
Human beings can all be guilty of going back on previously held beliefs but then they are not generally asking for votes in exchange for conviction, courage or principle. To the electorate, therefore, what’s important is the nature of the flip-flop. Occasionally politicians make shamelessly contradictory statements to two different crowds. Describing a Democratic primary candidate in 1972 (and former vice-president) for doing just that, Hunter S Thompson wrote, ‘There is no way to grasp what a shallow, contemptible and hopelessly dishonest old hack Hubert Humphrey is … until you’ve followed him around for a while.’
On other occasions, politicians flip-flop because of changing circumstances or to avoid short-term political flak. John Kerry tied himself up in knots over his vote for the Iraq War and then famously said, ‘I actually did vote for the $87bn [war funding] before I voted against it.’ Bush Senior met a similar fate to Kerry in 1992 when Bill Clinton reminded voters that the incumbent had campaigned in 1988 on the slogan, ‘read my lips: no new taxes’ before doing exactly that to reduce the budget deficit.
Sometimes, however, accusations of flip-flopping do not stick particularly when the public can see the logic of the new position. This is likely to be the case for Obama despite McCain claiming this weekend that his ‘word cannot be trusted’.
While it is without doubt that Obama changed his mind on public funding, his pledge dates back to a letter sent to the Federal Election Commission in February 2007. In the first quarter of 2007, Obama raised $25m from 100,000 donors. He has now raised $286m and some are speculating that he will have raised $500m by the time of the election. Since he now has 1.5 million donors and can therefore claim that his fundraising is more democratic than the wealthy networks that are normally exploited, it seems fair to say that only an idiot – and certainly no candidate for the world’s most important job – would have limited themselves to the $85m provided by statute.
A pragmatic switch in tactics is one thing but voters have generally been less forgiving of reversals of principle. McCain, therefore, is on shakier ground. In addition to being deeply unpopular in the crucial state of Florida and only likely to deliver a couple more years of oil at best, his new position on offshore drilling comes on the back of a series of about-turns. He has also flip-flopped on abortion, which in 1999 he felt did not need repealing but now describes as ‘flawed’, and the Bush tax cuts, which he would maintain if elected despite voting against them in 2001 and 2003. The man whose election bus is called ‘The Straight Talk Express’ may find he needs some firmer ground to support his favoured brand of footwear.
Will Straw