Mitt Romney has flip-flopped on whether he’s a flip-flopper (via):
In the town hall of 250 people … Romney addressed perceptions and concerns that he is “a flip flopper.”
“In the private sector,” he said, “if you don’t change your view when the facts change, well you’ll get fired for being stubborn and stupid. Winston Churchill said, ‘When the facts change I change too, Madam. What do you do?’”
That’s different from what he said a week ago, when he said he doesn’t change positions.
I’ve always thought that flip-flopping was a stupid criticism, since we elect representatives who can and should change their mind on issues as the facts, or even durable public opinion, change. It’s also become a meaningless accusation since it’s thrown around indiscriminately.
But of all the politicians who have been called a flip-flopper — that is, someone who changes their position every time it suited their narrow short-term interests, without regard to principle or even common sense — Mitt Romney is the one guy who most richly deserved it, and his most recent comments are moving him into parody territory.
Cat Lady
Wasn’t there a guy in a Flipper suit who used to follow him everywhere? He’s been in parody territory for a long time.
arguingwithsignposts
I’d argue he’s always been in parody territory, just less overt. The guy really is a walking weather vane.
beltane
There is a wide, well-marked line between being a pragmatist and being a whore. We all know which side of that line Mitt Romney is on. Even the Republicans know this. While Rick Perry may be slumping in the polls, his supporters are drifting over to Gingrich and Caine, not Romney.
Romney will probably win the nomination, but he’ll have to pick a running mate as putrid as someone like Tom Tancredo in order to win over the base.
Paul in KY
I wish John Kerry had said something like that, instead of whatever droning senatorial-speak he used back then.
lacp
What’s even more amusing is that he attributes this quote to Winnie (conservative icon) rather than to John Maynard Keynes (conservative villain) to whom it is usually – correctly or incorrectly – attributed.
Chris
That wasn’t Churchill, jackass, it was John Maynard Keynes, although I can understand why you wouldn’t want to be caught in a conservative audience quoting Keynes, even if it’s such an obvious point.
And good Lord, when did “the facts change” on abortion and gay marriage, if not universal health care? Or do “the facts” mean “the constituency I was sucking up to?”
amk
The real flip-flopper is pissed off.
http://tinypic.com/r/9sdvd4/7
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
But if he flip-flops twice on the same subject, does he not end up back in the position he started in? His displacement therefore is zero, and so he hasn’t changed position. Maybe he’s trying to appeal to physicists. Mabye he’s trying to build up the uncertainty surrounding him until he’s only governable by the laws of quantum mechanics: All spin, no position.
Culture of Truth
Even so, I believe he will skate on this, as long as he asserts the appropriate positions going into the primaries – pro-life, anti-Obamacare, etc. He still won’t be as conservative as Perry (although he’s trying to move to Perry’s right on some issues, and fling the flip-flopper charge back at him) but he’s trying to reach the threshold of “good enough” which may yet be ‘enough’.
Culture of Truth
@arguingwithsignposts: “Whether Vain”
arguingwithsignposts
@Culture of Truth: But that’s not really in question, is it? :)
deep cap
@beltane: Christy.
Christy won’t run for president but he’ll make Romney look more appetizing to the masses.
Cacti
I keep hearing how the debate was such a disaster for Perry, and yet…
The latest CNN poll still has Perry over Romney by about the same margin.
Romney is the “presumptive favorite” that nobody but Yankees and Mormons want.
Culture of Truth
I also like “Reversible Mittens,” which I saw someone use on Twitter
jibeaux
@Cacti: Yeah, I never really bought into the whole narrative of “he’s toast! Look how badly he did in the debate!” These are the people who voted for W. Debate skills my patootie. The only thing that might have hurt him would have been the wider exposure of the tuition for the children of illegal immigrants thing.
Chris
@lacp:
Clearly, great minds think alike.
@Cacti:
I noticed that too – I don’t think the critics’ opinions matter much to the base.
Heck, Bush couldn’t find a coherent sentence with both hands and a flashlight. They still loved him, until he became a liability and therefore he’d been a liberal all along…
Yankees, Mormons, and Wall Street. That last one might still be enough to tip the scales. I don’t know.
boss bitch
He’s in a competitive race with John McCain.
Bill H.
Might be a close call between him and John McCain, but McCain has been at it longer.
Edit: sorry, boss bitch, you and I were on the same wave length
comrade scott's agenda of rage
@Cacti:
And those two demographics make up how much of the Repup primary electorate I wonder? If he wins, it won’t be because the neo-Confederacy wing of the party, ie., all of it that’s not corporate, came out from under their sheets to vote for him. And that’ll translate into weak support in November.
And it won’t make any difference who his VP will be although it’ll be one of the more batshit, nuttier ones. This is like Bush I all over again: a New England Republican (already on the endangered species list) who will need to pick an exceedingly conservative (by contemporary standards) running mate in order to get at least some of the 27 Percenters out of their Barcaloungers to vote.
Zifnab
@Paul in KY:
This.
Romney may be a flip-flopper, but at least he knows how to handle the allegation.
beltane
Lest we forget, for 5 1/2 years John McCain was not able to flip-flop on all the important issues of the day. Mitt Romney doesn’t have that going for him.
Cacti
@jibeaux:
The money boys want Romney because he’s one of them. So the media was given their scripts about how awful, terribly, bad Perry did.
But it ain’t sticking.
Mark B.
That’s a pretty reasonable statement from Mitt … which means he has absolutely no chance of winning the Republican nominations. The Republican primary voters want candidates who are full bore, pedal to the medal right wing ideologues who are incapable on thinking rationally about any of the gospel right wing talking points.
Comrade Javamanphil
@Chris:
Eventually the conservative big thinkers will realize that the tea party just isn’t that into them. At which point, they will all publish columns that back whatever lunatic the farthest right voters want. The tribe has spoken.
Culture of Truth
I’m skeptical of post-debate pundit analysis – as I recall they said Kerry and Obama ‘lost’ their debates, though the public thought otherwise. It’s not like everyone even watches those things. Having said that, those who do watch are presumably the die hards and undecideds, and may be seeing some of these candidates for the first time, and are looking for who can go toe to toe with Obama. Media outlets like CNN can do all the polls they want, but the only ones that matter are the votes cast on primary day.
jibeaux
@Chris: You know what’s funny, I wrote about my dad here once before although it didn’t get much attention, but my dad’s always been a moderate Republican of the bootstrappy type. His dad died young and he never had any money and he spent his summer vacations cleaning septic tanks and the like, and he just sort of turned out that way. But he’s never been religious, or crazy, and he believes in global warming and doesn’t hate anybody and thinks it’s great that gay people are getting married. But he’s generally voted for these jokers despite my efforts to fill him in on the fact that the party’s changed and he’s not a great fit for it any more. According to my mom, this year he’s voting for Obama unless Huntsman miraculously makes it onto the ballot. Husband & mom noted, and it’s true, that logically Romney should be highly satisfactory to him, but he can’t stand him. Now, anecdotes are not data and this is not polling, of course, but I think it’s worth noting that Romney is just deeply, profoundly, unlikeable. I don’t see how any voter would connect with someone that transparently craven.
JPL
@Zifnab: Romney flip-flopped on global warming. The problem with Romney’s answer is why did he change his mind. The only thing that changed is he is running for president of the tea party. It was not based on scientific evidence.
NonyNony
@comrade scott’s agenda of rage:
Yeah but back in 1988 that guy was Dan Quayle.
I mean sure he was a nutter, but he was kind of a quiet nutter and his rock-stupid ignorance got more play than his nutty ideas. Even his nutty ideas were always presented more like he was an idiot than a nut – “look how stupid Dan Quayle is – he thinks Murphy Brown is a real person! What a moron!”
That alone should tell people just how far the discourse in this country has shifted to the right.
Cat Lady
@comrade scott’s agenda of rage:
If Romney is the candidate, the 27%ers will see Obama v. Romney like a lot of “progressives” saw Bush v. Gore – no difference. I really don’t think anyone votes for the VP.
Kane
Romney is a former pro-choice governor who supported gay rights, gun control, comprehensive immigration reform, combating climate change, health care mandates, and who attended Planned Parenthood fundraisers.
What facts changed on these issues since the last election?
It’s one thing to be fexible in mind to change opinions when new facts are presented, and it’s another thing to change opinions because it’s politically expedient.
NonyNony
@jibeaux:
It isn’t just the cravenness of Romney. Among a lot of conservative, middle-class voters a guy like Romney is EVERYTHING THEY HATE about the Democratic party. The caricature of the Dems that they have in their heads is almost exactly like Mitt Romney – rich guys from Massachusetts who think they’re better than everyone else and therefore can tell people what to do. They see Mitt Romney and they see John Kerry or Ted Kennedy – there’s no difference in their minds. The fact that Romney is mouthing conservative positions just proves to them that he’s even more fake than Kerry or Kennedy was.
Paul in KY
@Culture of Truth: I never saw where an independent observer thought Pres. Obama lost any debate against Sen. McCain.
Cacti
@jibeaux:
It’s the Eddie Haskell factor.
He just can’t shake it.
comrade scott's agenda of rage
@Cacti:
I went into this thinking the same thing but the more I look at Perry’s “pay to play” (ie crony capitalism) reputation, I think the money boys will be just fine with him. They’ll get everything they want, deregulation, industry insiders put in charge of regulatory agencies, yunno, all the shit the Repups always do, particularly accelerated under Bush II.
@NonyNony:
Exactly. The media climate has changed soo much since then. If Quayle were the VP nominee now, none of his shit would be challenged.
Cacti
@Cat Lady:
If they did, Dukakis would have trounced Poppy Bush.
I could see Romney choosing Herman Cain as running mate though. Based on the delusional belief that minorities will come around if it’s a black face telling them that they’re lazy welfare bums, and Obama is really from Kenya.
Kane
Of course Romney is attempting to walk away from his past policies, but these aren’t policies that he can simply walk away from. The very policies that he once supported not so long ago are the curse and bane of the modern GOP. And many of these policies are also part of the core arguments that Republicans have used for more than three years to vilify President Obama. A Romney nomination undercuts these arguments and exposes their hypocrisy for all to see. The elites of the GOP understand this, which explains in part why they desperately seek anyone but Romney.
Culture of Truth
@jibeaux: Indeed, he sounds like he should be a Romney-guy, to the extent anyone would be. Don’t know how widespread his impression is, but it could be a problem for Mitt.
In other news, Giuliani has sent an ’emissary’ to New Hamsphire.
Chris
@jibeaux:
I agree with what NonyNony said about this – although I’d add that he’s the ultimate negative sterotype from both parties. He fulfills both the “New England liberal elitist” stereotype the GOP hates, and the “rich stooge for Wall Street” stereotype the Dems hate. And because he flip-flops so much and so eagerly, neither of us really trusts that he’s “one of us.”
Sooo… shitty combination for earning people’s trust.
JPL
@Kane: That is my feeling also which why I think his latest reason on the flip-flops is bogus.
A good journalist would ask him What evidence did you read that changed your mind on climate change?
Shlemizel
gotta disagree with you MM on the flip-flop charge not being valid for Mitt.
What facts have changed on reproductive freedom? What facts have changed on gay rights? His was not a change of facts but a change of convenience. HE was for those things when it helped him get elected in MA & is against them now because he will help to get him the nomination. He is a man of no moral convictions and no determinable policies.
NonyNony
@Kane:
You’ve got it backwards – the elites desperately wish they COULD foist Romney off on the population. they’re casting about looking for anyone who is going to be their creature – like Romney certainly would be – but isn’t as unacceptable to the tea partiers as Romney would be.
If it were just “anyone but Romney” for the elites, they wouldn’t have banded together to try to torpedo Perry the way they have. They’re gunning for Perry because they know his agenda isn’t their agenda – he isn’t “one of them” the way Romney is – and they won’t be able to control him.
The only reason Romney is still in this race is because he’s the number one choice of the establishment elites of the GOP. They just can’t get their rank-and-file to agree with them about that.
Cacti
@Shlemizel:
Barney Frank had Mittens pegged when he said that his only consistent position is that he thinks he should run the world.
negative 1
From an old episode of SNL:
“I’ve been very consistent on my positions. I’m for the war when speaking to pro-war crowds and against the war when speaking to anti-war crowds. That’s not flip-flopping that’s pandering and the American people deserve a president who knows the difference!”
Chris
@NonyNony:
I think they may be overreacting if that’s true. The guy’s no Romney, but he’s no Huckabee either, and I don’t imagine it would be too hard to get him to play ball with them if he made it into the White House. It seems more likely that they’re gunning for Perry because they’re afraid he’s unelectable.
Kane
In a roundabout kind of way, I think Romney mirrors the GOP more than republicans want to admit. In recent years, the party faithful have flip-flopped on a number of issues. Now they want to present themselves as conservative purists, but Romney and other candidates continue to be a reminder of their hypocrisy.
Culture of Truth
@Paul in KY: Thanks – I may be mistaken, but I definitely remember it was the case with Kerry.
cleek
i don’t think anybody had to torpedo Perry. his support was imaginary. he hadn’t been in a national debate. he hasn’t campaigned anywhere. what people knew of him was based on rumor and legend. that’s why it was so absurd that the lib-o-sphere wet their pants when he announced: there was little basis for having any opinion at all about him.
when people finally saw him in the first debate, they scratched their heads. after the second debate, they knew there was less there than they had been lead to believe. and that’s when his debate opponents attacked. and the attacks worked.
shorter me: the real Perry turned out to be different than the Perry everybody imagined.
Kane
@NonyNony: Those very same elites are the ones who encouraged Perry to run. The same elites who sought out Daniels, Ryan, Christie and others to get into the race. The same elites at FreedomWorks who have attempted to knee-cap the Romney campaign.
Granted, the same elites who have been seeking anyone but Romney will undoubtedly support him if it looks like he is their best chance, but he is not their first choice, he is simply a security blanket just in case.
Chris
@Kane:
When you’re a mass movement like the teabaggers, “purity” is measured not by what you believe, but by whether or not you’ve stuck to The Group at all times, regardless of what it was doing/believing.
Thus, Bruce Bartlett, who accused Bush of being “not a real conservative” in 2004, is excommunicated even though he said the same thing the entire party started saying in 2008… Because Bartlett said it four years too early, and in so doing fell out of step with The Movement, the only thing they can’t forgive.
WereBear
I agree with the speculation that he’s a psychopath.
Cruelty to animals, wife lives a separate life of her own, habitual liar, and completely unperturbed no matter what friggin’ happens. Oh, and the whole “this guy skeeves me out” vibe. Check and check.
Now I’m not saying he’s the Kevin Spacey character in Seven. All serial killers are psychopaths, but not all psychopaths are serial killers.
Still… shouldn’t be President.
Paul in KY
@Culture of Truth: Definitely with Kerry, I remember various non-overtly-partisan people opining that he lost debates with GWB. I didn’t think he lost, but I’m a partisan DFH.
harlana
Yes, all this was glaringly evident in the 2008 race. Wonder how much it had to do with him losing the primary.
eugene
@Chris: The funny thing is the only part that really comes from Churchill is the “Madam”; Churchill said something like “I might be drunk Madam, but you’re ugly and I’ll be sober tomorrow”.
harlana
@cleek:
He looked good straddling a hay bale and, apparently, that was all that mattered at the time. Crappy debate performance aside, the way Fox News has thrown him under the bus (for said crappy performance), however, indicates to me that Rove has won.
ppcli
@lacp: I breathlessly await Mitt’s statement on (so-called – I hate this label) “Right to work” laws:
As Margaret Thatcher said against unions: “Workers of the world unite. You have nothing to lose but your chains”
harlana
@ppcli: Yeah, I live in a Right to Work state – handy little euphemism for “Right to Fire for Any Reason Whatsoever”
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Both Mittens and Perry are two sides of GH Bush, aren’t they?
Mittens is the Ivy League Educated East Coast Corporate conservative GW Bush is and Perry is the Texan good old boy, know nothing but Jesus that GW Bush pretended to be. Bush fiction meets Bush reality and they both suck for even conservatives.
Samara Morgan
Cain is moving up on Romney. its a 3-way.
and check out Florida.
hmmm…..who do the teabaggers hate more?
mormons or negroes?
this is beyond hilarious!
Samara Morgan
@harlana: what does Rove think of Cain?
Samara Morgan
@Chris: Right Wing Authority Tendency.
its red/blue genetics in action.
:)
Elie
@Cacti:
The Bushies are behind the scenes doing the business on Perry. Unfortunately for Romney, they can’t make him the popular favorite…
Romney is just a creepy guy. They guy no one likes but somehow always places himself in the thick of things. He is ambitious and passionate about his ambition, if nothing else — which is why everything else changes around depending on the proximate need at the moment, There is no there there — beyond the ambition.
Cat Lady
@WereBear:
…you know, the thing about
a sharkRomney… he’s got lifeless eyes. Black eyes. Like a doll’s eyes. When he comes at ya, doesn’t seem to be living…cmorenc
What’s MOST annoying about Romney is that he has exhibited genuine talent as Mass. Governor for innovative approaches that blended progressive and conservative concerns, and has a track record of successful management of public projects such as the 2002 Winter Olympics at Salt Lake City. In other words, at one time he represented the kind of sane, pragmatic, moderate Republican we could live with when the GOP periodically won top offices.
However, the pursuit of the Presidency in 2008 and 2012 has unfortunately proven to be a consuming fatal obsession that has tempted Romney into taking the opportunistic path leading toward Hell where a person allows their burning ambition to dissolve their character and fealty to any principles except pursuit of the grand prize. Someday, if he never quite makes it to the Presidency, he’s going to have deep regrets over how he allowed his character to degrade so much during this period. OTOH if he succeeds, the regret thing someday? Probably, not so much.
Elie
@Cat Lady:
Well at least the shark has a reason.. they roll their eyes back to prevent being injured when they attack and are customized for picking up movement rather than color.
Romney’s eyes are dead because they have no attachment to a his heart, but only to the black and white of his ambition. Nothing else matters and he is pretty much uni-dimensional on that. The problem for him is that he also has a sub par brain — he really isn’t very smart. That is a saving grace for us cause if he was smart we would be so fucked… Thankfully, he doesnt really “get” why tying the dog to the car roof was a bad thing — so he can’t learn to not do that sort of thing again.. he is always unable to “get” just the right thing to say or do as far as human emotions go…
Cat Lady
@Elie:
Well, let’s talk about his shoulders you could land a 747 on then.
/media whore
Barry
@NonyNony: “If it were just “anyone but Romney” for the elites, they wouldn’t have banded together to try to torpedo Perry the way they have. They’re gunning for Perry because they know his agenda isn’t their agenda – he isn’t “one of them” the way Romney is – and they won’t be able to control him.”
‘won’t be able to control him’? He’s already demonstrated that he’s quite controllable, so long as the check clears the bank.
MagicPanda
In 2008, Mitt Romney’s flip flopping seemed shameful. He seemed like the worst kind of used car salesman who would lie about his own past to close the sale.
And yet, in 2012, it’s the OTHER candidates who seem more phoney to me than Mitt, and it’s not because they flip-flopped on any issues.
In essence, the charge of flip flopping is about honesty. And since everyone is saying ANYTHING in order to please the crazy folks in their base, the charge of flip flopping seems trivial in comparison to all the other crazy stuff that people are saying.
Now I want to distinguish between the abstract charge of “flip flopping” vs. the actual policy positions that Mitt Romney held at one time.
Some of the GOP candidates certainly could (and should?) hammer Mitt about his health care plan, and say that it’s identical to Obama’s plan. That kind of attack would certainly work during the GOP primary.
But calling Mitt a flip-flopper? That’s basically just saying that he will say whatever it takes to get elected, but in that regard, he isn’t really any different than the rest of the GOP pack (except perhaps Ron Paul, who will continue to say crazy things that won’t help him get elected).
Pangloss
I’m going with Romney/Rubio.
sherparick
@lacp: Yes, if anyone said it, it was Keynes, but that would not be the meme he is selling to this audienceWhen the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?
Reply to a criticism during the Great Depression of having changed his position on monetary policy, as quoted in Lost Prophets: An Insider’s History of the Modern Economists (1994) by Alfred L. Malabre, p. 220
. From Wikiquote:
Also, they worship a Churchill who never existed, since he was one of the founders of the Welfare State in the Anglo-Saxon world.
http://www.winstonchurchill.org/learn/biography/radical/churchill-his-radical-decade
Finally, devastating review of Suskind’s book from the blogger “Economics of Contempt.” Apparently, Suskind has tried to write a book about economic policy decisions of the Obama administration without educating himself on the subject and doing the classic journalism grift of the last 25 years of creating a “bad guy” and “good guy” narrative.
http://economicsofcontempt.blogspot.com/2011/09/ron-suskinds-confidence-men-terrible.html
Brad Delong is a little gentler, but hits the same points while at the same time busting the administration for not being more flexible and aware of the downside economic riskes in 2009-10. http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2011/09/review-of-ron-suskinds-confidence-men.html
One of the things that bugs me is the intense ad hominem argument we Democrats are playing at right now. Some see Obama as the indistinguishable from Dubya Bush as a servant to the oligarchy (Yves Smith, David Sirota, Glenn Greenwald, Cornell West, Travis Smiley, come to mind) who decieved the electorate. Paul Krugman, no fan of Obama points out how wrong this is as (somewhat in a I told you so way). President Obama support of the Hamilton Project, his policy on escalating the war in Afghanistan as we drew down in Iraq, his support of placing protecting the U.S. from terrorist attacks over civil liberties were all clearly articulated before the election. Yes, he said he would close Guantanmo, but for practical reasons, and when that policy proved politically toxic in the Democratic Congress of 2009-10, he withdrwew the proposal.
Nevertheless, even though he is not my perfect President, he has started to learn some hard facts about our economy and the foolishness of the elite that runs it. He will need some luck for his reelection as things could still go very bad in Europe which pretty much screw our economy, and in screwing the economy, would screw the President.
sherparick
I think “flip-flopping” on specific issues is one thing. As a member of the reality based community, we should always react to the specific circumstances that present themselves and not how we imagine them. But Romney has also flip-flopped on what I think are principles. If you are pro-choice or anti-choice on abortion, you have adopted certain principles about the women’s autonomy concerning their body and sexuality. If you just flip on that issue because you had run in pro-choice state as Govenor and now want run as anti-choice Presidential candidate in a anti-choice party, I think that tells us something deeper about the person’s character.
Scott P.
The Fox News Poll has Romney 23, Perry 19, Cain 17.
Last month it was Perry 29, Romney 22, Cain 6.
Ben Cisco (mobile)
@ Culture of Truth 27: It wasn’t me!
Elie
@MagicPanda:
..and if it were just “flip-flopping”, you would be right on. Its flip-flopping along with creepiness and not being “fur-real”. Ingredient X is missing. He keeps having this problem so its not just flip flopping.
Vor
It used to poll well, now it doesn’t. The facts changed.
Jenny
Flip-flopping is short hand for being craven, an opportunist, and a pander. In Mitt’s case, he’s one thing when he’s running for local office in Massachusetts, and another when he’s running in fundie primary.
I mean, he’s not changing his position on Global Warming because of new facts.