The Urgent Necessity of “Flip Flopping”

by Ron Giusti, Political Writer

Many of Senator Barack Obama’s most ardent supporters have become upset with him, regarding recent positions he has taken on such things as gun ownership, electronic surveillance and the death penalty as a betrayal of his campaign’s original promise, which was to speak truthfully and openly about current issues.

Since securing the nomination, Obama has, to the chagrin of his core supporters, tacked a bit toward the center. Perhaps these supporters are upset because they don’t understand the reasons why every Democratic nominee for President, with the single exception of Bill Clinton, has been defeated since 1976. Perhaps it didn’t look smooth, graceful or elegant, but Senator Obama had to make the recent shifts he has. Failure to do so would have left the Senator unelectable and made the rest of his campaign a pointless ritual leading to inevitable defeat.

Since Richard Nixon’s election in 1968, Republican operatives have mastered the art of defeating Democrats by the effective use of “wedge issues” such as patriotism, guns, crime, national security, welfare, abortion, and family values. The usefulness of individual wedge issues for Republicans goes up or down depending on the symbolic power they may carry during any given election season. For almost forty years, Republican campaign managers have known how to pick and chose from among these old favorites, turn them into thirty second ads and then use those ads to effectively destroy one Democratic presidential nominee after another.

Obama has wisely decided that despite his reputation for intellect and depth, he will not play the role of a chump. Effective attack ads turned Michael Dukakis into someone who enjoyed giving weekend furloughs to convicted killers so that they could go out and commit additional mayhem. Attack ads turned George McGovern (who in WWII piloted dozens of bomber runs over occupied Europe) into someone who would if elected, dismantle the U.S. military, so that our enemies could march in and take what they wanted. Attack ads turned John Kerry, a decorated Viet Nam vet, into a coward and a traitor, who had lied to get his medals. Barack Obama doesn’t want to make it easy for the other side to give him similar treatment.

It’s easy to visualize the kind of attack ads that could have been run against Senator Obama during the next few months had he not made some of his more recent shifts on policy.

Obama’s hardcore liberal supporters were perhaps most upset over his decision to support an electronic surveillance bill giving retroactive immunity to telecommunications companies that took part in the Bush administrations warrantless wiretapping program. Here’s the kind of ad that would have been run against Obama had he not done so;

“Obama wants America’s telecommunications companies to be sued. Why? Because these companies helped to protect America by allowing our intelligence experts to listen in on the phone calls of terrorists who were targeting America. Apparently Obama thinks it’s a crime for companies to want to help protect America from killers like Osama Bin Laden....Obama wrong on electronic surveillance and wrong for America!”

Obama came out in support of the recent Supreme Court ruling that there is a second amendment right allowing individuals to keep a gun in their home for protection. Here’s the ad that could have been run had Obama gone the other way;

“Barack Obama doesn’t think you should have the most basic right any citizen can possess, the right to defend you, your wife, your kids, or yourself against intruders who break into your home. That’s right! Senator Obama doesn’t think the constitution gives you the right to keep a gun to protect your family. As a United States Senator and a VIP, Obama can keep a gun for his protection. However, the Senator doesn’t think you should have the same right to self defense that he has…If Obama wins so do the criminals.”

Obama has publically disagreed with a recent Supreme Court ruling that capital punishment should not be imposed for the crime of violently raping a child. Liberals were appalled with Obama for siding with what they termed “barbaric reasoning.” Had the Senator publically agreed with the court here is the type of add that would have been run;

“When a child is brutally and viciously raped, Senator Obama says we shouldn’t even consider imposing the death penalty on the perpetrator. Violent predators respect only one thing, strength, and Obama?
Well he’s just too weak for the job.”

Politics is the art of the possible. Most voters are involved in a daily struggle to pay the bills, survive at work and handle various family responsibilities. They don’t have the time, energy or the inclination to spend valuable time pondering all the subtle nuances of each presidential candidate’s positions. Al Gore, John Kerry and Michael Dukakis all got trapped by the Republicans into spending a good part of their campaigns trying to explain the nuances and each of them lost.

Attack ads work because most “swing” voters think in terms of black and white; they want some quick way of getting a feel for who someone is and what they represent. Based on bits and pieces of images, from television, the internet or the local newspaper, they form their impression of a presidential candidate. Once that impression is formed it is hard to change.

Given these realities, Obama doesn’t want to spend the next one hundred days trying to explain why he voted against wire tapping terrorists, or why he doesn’t think you should have the right to keep that 38 tucked in the night stand to protect the wife and kids or why he doesn’t think that criminals who brutalize little kids should get the juice.

Obama realizes that if he is trapped into defending of every left wing position that ever came down the road, he to will join the long list of democratic presidential losers. Barack Obama, like Bill Clinton before him, understands that American elections are won in the center, not on the fringes.

All of America’s greatest Presidents, leaders like FDR, Reagan, and JFK were men of conviction. However, all of them knew (and were severely criticized for it) when it was necessary to trim a bit in order to survive politically. Historian Doris Kerns Goodwin writes of perhaps our greatest president Abraham Lincoln;

“All his life, Lincoln had exhibited an exceptionally sensitive grasp of the limits set by public opinion. As a politician, he had an intuitive sense of when to hold fast, when to wait, and when to lead.”

Everyone knows that Barack Obama’s positions are left of center and that if elected he will govern very differently than would John McCain. However, Obama is no fool, realizing as he does, that he can’t run on Ralph Nader’s platform and expect to be elected president. Senator Obama is simply a very intelligent man being what he is; a politician. And the last time I looked that was one of the main “skill sets” required for the job he wants to fill.