When Flip-Flopping Became a Good Thing

This has to be one of the most bizarre Presidential elections in my lifetime. One candidate is part of the one percent that has been lambasted by large swaths of the electorate. He ran a company that laid off workers and exemplified the financial crisis and unfettered capitalism that has turned off and hurt so many Americans. He has changed his positions from day to day and even hour to hour. He has selected a right wing ideologue as his running mate. He claimed just two months ago that 47 percent of the country was lazy. And he is closing in on a possible election victory. Perhaps the strangest aspect of his late surge to tying the race was the moderate turn he took in the first debate. He has painted himself as the same middle of the road politician that was once governor of Massachusetts.

And not only the electorate but many newspapers are buying the reframing: Slate. On October 27 the Des Moines Register endorsed Romney, the first time they have done so for a Republican since 1972. And at least 21 papers that endorsed Obama four years ago have now switched to the Republican candidate this time around. The argument many of them make is that Romney is, in fact, a flip-flopper -- and that that is a good thing. While I agree that this is a quality we might covet in our Congressman, or even Senators on occasion, who are representing their constituents at the local and state level -- a President is supposed to stand for something, isn't he? A President that flaps with the wind is not the kind of leader we need at the moment. But what makes the switch even more bizarre is that Obama has actually governed from the right center since the stimulus and passage of Obamacare (which itself relied heavily on advice from the right wing Heritage Foundation). 

As Thomas Frank highlighted in Harpers back in September ("Compromising Positions"), Obama has been to the right of the Democratic party on issue after issue. To highlight the lowlights: 1) To reiterate, Obamacare was heavily influenced by the conservative Heritage Foundation and Romneycare from Massachusetts. It was a major achievement, but did not go as far as most progressives wanted (he slanted right to try to get Republican votes and got none). 2) His bank bank bailout was substantially the same as Bush's. 3) His Fed chairman was Bush's Fed chairman and his economic team too heavily influenced by old Clinton advisors who arguably played a role in the 2007-08 financial crisis. 4) In 2010, Obama created Simpson-Bowles and essentially followed the GOP gymnastics of focusing on deficits as economic growth was low and unemployment and poverty high. 5) He has followed the Bush administration in the war on terror (though more successfully, arguably) and the dedication to the war on civil liberties and government transparency. 6) Has done little to regulate the body most responsible for our current predicament -- Wall Street 7) Failed to raise taxes or even allow Bush's tax cuts to end. 8) Done little to help the poor or unions. 

If Obama actually ran on his record, rather than against the absurd charges of being a "socialist" and "Nazi" at the same time, he should win running away. But unfortunately his unwillingness to act in a real way, to be fair facilitated by the GOP's decision to block almost anything he proposes, has left him as the standbearer of the crises he inherited, and did lead us through. So Romney, who has flip-flopped on everything from the auto bailout, abortion and taxes to Medicare, Afghanistan and Healthcare reform, becomes the candidate who can somehow get us through the lingering financial malaise by essentially reiterating the policies of Bush (the President who left with the lowest approval ratings ever). It is only in the ahistorical, spectacle society politics of America today that a candidate could rebrand themselves as much as Romney has and actually have a chance. And this inability to deconstruct the Republican rhetorical machine might just send this country further down the road toward its ultimate demise. Let's hope enough people wake up from this bamboozling buffoon with a nice suit and smug smile.