This is a fun article at the Washington Monthly about the fact that Mitt Romney is now flip flopping on whether he has flip flopped. Steven Benen asks if Mitt Romney has any core beliefs at all, to which he gives the obvious answer: Yes, that Mitt Romney should be president.
But I come not to beat on Mitt, but to defend him.
There are two issues here; flip-flopping and core beliefs. Cleary Mitt is guilty of the former, and has none of the latter. But in neither is he alone. His flip flops draw attention because he has flipped so profoundly and so often on the major issues of the day. Most politicians stay away from flip flops on issues like abortion because it is in their own best interests to stand pat, in order to secure their own base. Mitt has had an unusual career, having made the mistake of starting off in a liberal state where his current positions would have left him bereft of votes. Thus we have flip flops on issues about which most politicians need never turn somersaults. But on the peripheral issues where we see flips all the time; you know, like torture, Guantanamo, civil liberties issues, etc., he flips no more or less often than other politicians we could name, though in truth he makes it worse by doing it so starkly.
As to core convictions, well here it is unclear that Mitt is any different than any run of the mill Washington politician. After three years of his presidency, I’m not sure I could identify even one of Obama’s core beliefs. Where he has stood pat, it is primarily because there have been no pressures of any importance pushing him to move. And Obama’s among the best. Core convictions, I would assert, tend to marginalize political players in Washington, or turn them into the butt of jokes. Mitt’s problem is that he is so bad at pretending that he believes anything. He is an utterly unconvincing actor, and after he wrests the Republican nomination from a very reluctant Republican party, he will have a lot of trouble convincing the broader electorate that they can believe anything he says. Not that they should…
So, pity poor Mitt.
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