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That's a strawman though, nobody actually says that. People complain about "flip flopping" when they see a politician campaigning and he or she says one thing
by papsosouid 14y ago
That's a strawman though, nobody actually says that. People complain about "flip flopping" when they see a politician campaigning and he or she says one thing on tuesday, something contradictory on wednesday, and then is back to the previous position again on thursday.
- jlgreco 14y agoUsually when I see it, it is people complaining that a candidate endorsed different viewpoints than they did during past elections (in other words, they think something different than they did years ago). Kerry and Romney both come to mind (though to be clear, both (or at least Romney) have been accused of the type you are talking about as well). Specifically I have heard some people claim that Romney has flip-flopped because they perceive a difference between his positions as a presidential candidate and as a governor.
- papsosouid 14y agoI think a lot of that is just that if the person in question clearly does just say whatever they think people want to hear, then a dramatic change in position appears more likely to just be more of the same. Romney suddenly being against "obamacare" is a good example. It doesn't appear that he changed his mind because of new information, since he still claims his version of the same thing is great, but Obama's is terrible.
- MartinCron 14y agoSimilarly, Romney has recently said "I have never said I was pro-choice" but he did, multiple times, say that he "supports a woman's right to choose". So, the verb form is OK but the noun form is absolutely not.
- silverbax88 14y agoActually, it has been used many times. Most recently, Bill Clinton was forced to defend things he wrote when he was at Oxford; George Bush was named as a person whose foreign policy platform was unchanged since he was 16, just to name two.