Tick-Tock, Flip-Flop

Perot is in and out and in again. Clinton, once a soldier in the ideological army of leftist George McGovern, fashions himself a moderate. And President Bush, once an advocate of abortion-rights, now supports a constitutional amendment criminalizing that same procedure.

What would presidential politics be without its born agains, its changes of heart--its flip-flops?

"Flip-flop:" the Random House definition reads, "a sudden or unexpected reversal, as of direction, belief, attitude or policy."

"The opposition," it uses by way of example, "claimed that the president had flip-flopped on certain issues."

Looking for current examples? This week was one for the record book of reversals.

In perhaps the greatest flip-flop-flip-agains in political history, Texas billionaire Rose Perot re-entered the race for the presidency. As an undeclared candidate, Perot led in the polls consistently until his "grassroots" movements hit the brick wall.

Saying that he cannot resist the call of his volunteers, though, Perot pledged run on. He has stunned the experts with his popularity and pulled the rug out from his volunteers. Now, it seems, he's brushed the rug off and laid it back on the floor.

"Perot himself is nothing more than a walking bundle of contradictions and flip flops," moans Associate Professor of Government Mark A. Peterson, who teaches a course in the American presidency.

Of course, Perot's lamentations of past "mistakes"(read: lies) is no rarity.

Bush, for example, denied to the very last that he would summon his old friend and partner in fish James A. Baker III to run the crumbling White House. When the move was actually made, though it was business as usual. No mention of the earlier denials. White House reporters didn't even bother to ask.

But there is something more precious about a genuine, lips-twitching, mouth-frothing, nosegrowing flip-flop. Real flip-flops have a depth of irony and lunacy that make them unusual. They throw journalists, who never satisfy the urge to communicate the two-faced nature of politics, into a frenzy.

And flip-flops are a cherished tradition. They are an art pioneers by the earliest pioneers of American liberty.

Thomas Jefferson, for example, emphatically opposed wide power for the president, warning of demagoguery. That changed, however, when Jefferson himself was elected to the office.

When the French put a huge piece of real estate called Louisiana on the market in 1803, Jefferson, without seeking Congressional approval, exceeded and thus expanded his executive authority to make the purchase.

Jefferson the idealist won the hearts of journalists forever by declaring that he "should not hesitate for the moment" to defend right of newspapers over the right of government.

But Jefferson the politician had a more sour view: "Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper," he wrote to a friend in 1807. "Truth itself becomes suspicious by being put in that polluted vehicle." (With his attitudes towards the press, Jefferson is surpassed only by Nixon, who spoke eloquently for first amendments freedoms while using the FBI to spy on journalists he thought were dangerous.)

Of course, Jefferson's legacy lies with his famous document of principle--the Declaration of Independence. In a country so devoid of confidence in its leaders, that sort of idealism is guarded carefully.

No wonder that Democrats and Republicans alike this year are invoking the spirit of Franklin Delano Roosevelt '04 to lend credibility to their plans for change. No 20th century figure comes close to Roosevelt's commitment to social and economic justice.

But Clinton and Bush might inquire a little deeper into FDR's past. As a young man at Harvard College, Roosevelt was crushed by his rejection from the Porcellian Club. He thought membership in the elitist organization to be his birthright (after all, cousin Theodore had belonged).

Later in his career, FDR confided to a friend that rejection from the Pork was the greatest disappointment of his life.

Of course, the elder President Roosevelt set a fine tradition for flip-flopping himself. Upon retiring from the presidency in 1908, TR professed to have lost interest in the white House.

But in 1912, Roosevelt changed his mind. He ran for president on the Bull Moose party ticket and became the most successful third party candidate until--you guessed it--Rose Perot.

Those wondering whether Perot has a change to play spoiler in this election needn't look past the 1912 race, in which Roosevelt drew enough votes from William Howard Taft to give Woodrow Wilson victory by plurality.

If presidents are vulnerable to the whims to the electorate, vice-presidents sometimes the smallest of pawns.

Take Lyndon Johnson. In his career as a Senator from Texas, Johnson had a dismal record on issues of civil rights.

But when he became president, Johnson signed into law the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, making him, according to Peterson," perhaps the greatest champion of civil rights this country has ever had."

The next Democrat and Southerner to assume the presidency, Jimmy Carter, was no stranger to the gumby effect either. He bent in many directions, despite his image today as a man of unparalleled principle.

In 1977, the Democrats in Congress fought tooth and nail for an unpopular $50 tax credit Charter had proposed during the campaign. But when the credit passed the Congress, Carter withdrew his support, infuriating many members of his own party.

The nation's most recent ex-president, Ronald Reagan, has been easier to faults for his honesty than for any lack of consistency. But he also set a record for speed of a flip-flop.

It took Jefferson several decades and Johnson several years to shift on major issues. Reagan only took a couple of minutes.

In an interview on the Iran-Contra scandal, Reagan insisted he never traded arms for hostages. Well, he admitted, it did appear that arms were traded for hostages. Finally he returned to his original denial.

This was in one sitting.

The dignity of the presidency seemed enough to protect Reagan from critics, but candidates for the office have no such luxury.

The 1988 campaign left two men of the cloth, Jesse L. Jackson and Pat Robertson, particularly red-faced.

Jackson and Robertson both preached against the evils of sex before marriage. But when presented with evidence that their eldest children had been born within weeks of their marriages, both were forced to admit that they had participated in pre-marital sin.

But this year's campaign, perhaps more than any other year in recent memory, has produced an immense batch of flip-flops.

One of the most obvious, and perhaps decisive, is George Bush's now-famous breaking of his "No new taxes" pledge. During the 1988 campaign, the then-vice president repeated in nearly every campaign appearance.

In June of 1990, Bush announced that he, regrettably, was unable to fulfill his promise. Behind the scenes, of course, Bush swallowed the tax increase rather than cut popular programs.

While some voters felt betrayed, Peterson said Bush's decision to raise taxes was one of the "boldest and most courageous moments in his Presidency."

"There is a sense in which he should be applauded rather than ridiculed," Peterson said.

But to emphasize the error of his ways, Bush felt compelled to apologize for the tax increase at the 1992 Republican National Convention, telling the party faithful he had made a mistake and would repent with a tax cut if he were re-elected.

Bush is certainly not the only candidates to flip-flop this year, and many of the reversals had far deeper roots than a 1988 pledge. The ever-changing debate on abortion has caused many politicians to change their stances on the divisive issue.

Bush, prior to accepting the Republican vice presidential nomination in 1980, was decidedly prochoice. Now he has made opposition to abortion to a defining element of the Republican platform.

Clinton favored restrictions on abortions early in his tenure as Arkansas governor. Now he has enthusiastically endorsed the Freedom-of-Choice Act, a bill which would make it nearly impossible for the federal government to impose the restrictions he once favored.

Vice presidential candidate AL Gore '69, too, steadfastly opposed federal funding for abortions until ambitions for national office inspired him to change his ways.

Vice president Dan Quayle has been more solid in his opposition to abortion. But he's done his own share of flip-flopping. After a highly publicized attack on television character Murphy Brown's decision to bear a child out of wed lock, Quayle now insists he has no problems with single mothers.

To emphasize his warm, gentle side, Quayle even sent a stuffed, presumably Republican, elephant to the child of the fictional TV anchorwoman as a gift. "Mr. Vice President, "observers implored, "it's TV Get a grip."

In general, front-runner Clinton, dubbed slick Willie by his political enemies in Arkansas, is more apt to straddle issues than to do the obvious reversals.

But pressed on the issue of his draft status during the Vietnam War, Clinton has backpeddled his way to the edge of a political cliff.

While he once said that his not being drafted was "just a fluke," Clinton has acknowledged that he used an ROTC program to temporarily avoid the draft and tried to used his political connections to win an exemption from serving.

The irony of 1992 is the effort to paint Perot as a flake--a man whose on-again/off-again routine makes him unfit for office. But, after months of bad-mouthing Perot, Bush and Clinton rushed to court his supporters the instant he bowed out.

Each side presented itself as the best avenue for carrying out Perot's ideas--the very ideas they had dismissed only days earlier.

Given the precedent, Perot might do well to ignore calls for consistency. Perhaps he should drop out again--then come back in again.

Americans seems to like it when their presidents keep them guessing.