Change we can count on
Posted by Dan on Jun 24th, 2008
2008
Jun 24
Obama’s decision to renege on his promise to accept public financing seems to have triggered a number of editorials. US News & World Report calls him a “serial flip-flopper” and notes:
Change we can believe in? No, change we can count on, because as soon as he takes a position, we can count on the fact he’s going to change it in front of the next audience.
It’s official. Obama is just another weaselly politician. He may be the most talented weaselly politician in a generation, but you still can’t believe anything he says.
June 25th, 2008 at 9:19 pm
I don’t see it this way. If you want someone who sticks by an opinion even when the situation changes, so that the original stance is, to put it baldly, stupid, then stick with George Bush. Obama’s situation when he made that “pledge” was that he was an underdog and couldn’t expect to raise much money. But with his unexpected ability to raise much more than the public financing offered, his situation drastically changed. Nonetheless, he argued (and it may be true) that the principle did not change, namely, to be financed by the “people” (he claims most contributions are small individual ones) rather than by special interests that the politician would be obligated to favor.
Think of it this way: you ask me to drive you somewhere tomorrow and then take you to the airport. I “pledge” to do so. But then I find out that you want me to drive you to a bank which you intend to rob, and then to a private airplane on which you will escape to Mexico (a plane with one passenger seat). Wouldn’t I be an idiot to stand by my original “pledge”?
Unfortunately, the decision to change one’s stance in such circumstances is both complicated and nuanced, and it is much easier to appeal to voters by simply declaring, “he broke his word”, than by asking them to consider all the factors that go into the final decision. And it appears that the McCain strategy is to “Kerryfy” Obama by using the old “flip-flop” label, one which Obama is laboriously trying to explain himself out of. Maybe he’ll succeed.
June 26th, 2008 at 7:56 am
Your example isn’t very good. It’s not like Obama found out that his supporters were going to rob a bank if he kept his pledge. The only thing his supporters are guilty of is giving him more money than he expected.
Reporters have been asking Obama about public financing all along. He could have said, from the beginning, “I am in favor of public financing as long as I am an underdog”. He could have said, in March or so when it was clear that he was raising more money than Hillary, that he had changed his mind. He could have said at any time that the real issue was special interests, not public financing.
Instead we get a change of position plus a weaselly rationalization, in other words typical politician behavior, from someone who has positioned himself as being above politics as usual.
June 26th, 2008 at 12:01 pm
I didn’t mean for my example to be a point for point comparison, just to point out that a situation may change and justify breaking one’s word.
And Obama is certainly a politician. Obviously the real reason he has rejected public financing is that he will take in a lot more money through private contributions than he would through the public financing system. But I don’t doubt that the system is broken, or at least that wily politicians have gotten around it in the past. Perhaps he should just have come out and said, “Hey, I found out that I can get a lot more money through the internet and besides the public financing system is broken.” Obama took a calculated risk: he hopes he will have a enough money to put out enough ads to make people forget this flip-flop by the time of the election. He surely knew that the Republicans would use it against him. And it is no coincidence that he asked his supporters to pay off Hillary’s debt soon after his rejection of public financing. He will receive more vigorous help from the Clintons for his “generosity.”
And there is another aspect to this “breaking one’s word” business. It matters what the “word” is. If the “word” is about something trivial, then it is unfortunate, but nothing to get too excited about. If a husband, for example, doesn’t take out the garbage because he decided to watch a football game, even though he promised his wife that he would, that is a far less significant matter than having an affair with his secretary. Or at least one hopes so.
To my mind, Obama breaking his word on public financing is not that significant. Breaking his word on getting out of Iraq or universal health care would be. All it merits is that the public watch Obama closely and hold him to his word on what really matters. And we shouldn’t be too shocked that he is a politician as well as an inspiring speaker. Wasn’t Hillary’s criticism of him that he was just an empty voice? Recent events (like his victory over her) show that he is a much tougher politician than she thought. And that’s what is what will be needed to be elected POTUS.