For my part, I'd rather the guy was a waffler than someone who consistently committed himself without reservation to positions I think are wrong and irresponsible. Of course Bush doesn't waffle, because he won't expose himself to any information that might permit the infiltration of complexity into his thinking. That is, if the source of information isn't Rove, Rummy, Wolfowitz, or Cheney, it's probably compromised by "liberal bias."

Oxblog summarizes a dialectic framed around two ways to explain the phenomenon of "waffling": (1) the guy appreciates the complexity of the issues before him and has the capacity to change his mind, and (2) he blows with the wind of the polls. Even if, as I estimate it, Kerry's waffling is probably 80% due to the latter and 20% to the former (so the waffling does not in all cases speak poorly of him but only in most), I don't see how this hurts him.

Ideally the candidate would be someone who showed damn-the-polls leadership and decisiveness, but with a commitment to getting right answers.

Say what you want — this is a referendum on the incumbent. No one who objects to Bush's ideology is going to vote for him nonetheless, simply because of an abstract belief in his "leadership." A lot of us think Bush is ably leading this country over a cliff. I don't think I could name a Democrat who would defect to Bush over Kerry's wishy-washiness right now. How else could such a nonentity so convincingly win his party's nomination? According to exit polls, people are behind him solely because they think he can oust Bush. That means the anti-Bush sentiment takes precedence over all other concerns about Kerry (many of which are nonnegligible, I must admit).

From the Bush campaign perspective, I don't see the strategy here, unless it's to send people into the Nader camp. If Bush wants to reach across the left-right divide and take back votes for himself, he needs to abandon his retrograde views on social issues, take steps to recover our standing in the international community, and dump his VP.

Somehow I don't see any of that happening.

But if you favor a guy who lives every day of his life in absolute, irreversible conviction — the kind that millennialist evangelical Christians have due to their unrelenting and oversimplistic black-white view of the world — then go for Bush. He'll continue to cut taxes and trees, squander our money and international cachet on trumped-up wars, pursue his "find something else to burn" energy policy, bring Texas-style execution into states that abhor the practice, curtail our civil rights and run our prison system into the ground with overaggressive prosecutions.

Because George Dubya, God love him, doesn't flip-flop when he thinks he right.

Hadn't gagged up a screed in a while. So there it is.

Posted by: Brad A. at March 11, 2004 04:14 PM

Ah, thank you for the screed. Always welcome.

Most of what I was trying to point out in the post was non-normative and simply descriptive. I happen to think (regardless of whether it's right or good) that Bush's approach may work like a charm (from a purely tactical point of view).

Kerry is the most liberal member of the Senate based on his voting record (a 96.5 out of a 100 according to National Journal and 92% according to Americans for Democratic Action). The normal move for a presidential candidate is to distance himself from some of his previous stands and move towards the middle (in order to have a chance of carrying the South). Painting him as a waffler in the beginning may make it harder for him to disavow those liberal views in the end game – and that could really hurt him.

Now, I agree with Mike F., you don't necessarily want a candidate who sways with the wind and moves to the middle when expedient. A little integrity is much appreciated (and hard to find). But Democrats seem to be going with "electability" here, so some "centering" is likely prudent.

Just my thoughts on the sometimes interesting tactics of running a campaign.

Posted by: richard at March 11, 2004 09:46 PM

I understood you were writing descriptively. I guess I just don't see who the audience is for the Bush Push you're describing. It seems to me that it's immaterial to Democrats whether Kerry is a liberal with integrity or a waffler: the point is that he is not a committed conservative (note that while I don't deny that conservatives can be "committed," I'm hard pressed to concede any "integrity" there these days). So I don't see either strategy winning votes from the hard left, although I might buy the notion that if "waffling" sticks, Dean's people might defect to vote for Nader.

As for the middle, then — the Bush campaign portrays Kerry as "wishy-washy." I'll buy that for a dollar, but where does it go? Does the middle favor someone who might be a lefty, but isn't sure of himself, or someone who is absolutely convinced he's on the right, and has moved ever so determinedly in that direction after he got elected (well, close enough) by appealing to the middle? This doesn't work unless Bush ably casts himself in opposition to Kerry, the irresolute opinion whore. To do that he has to present himself as a determined middle-of-the-road guy (I'd hate to have to write that presentation, which is in theory close to oxymoronic and in reality wholly belied by the Gentleman's Presidency to date), or as a come-clean righty. The first substrategy is a risky and difficult sell, and the second could well end up alienating the folks in the middle.

If there is anything to the strategy that you describe, it's that it is directed at turning the spotlight on Kerry and slipping a magnifying glass under it (which can have the effect of starting fires). It seems inconsistent with Bush's ad campaign that — so far, anyway — centers the attention on himself. When both candidates are lousy — whatever the reason for it — it's best to shift attention to The Other Guy whenever possible.

I'm just convinced that, try as he might to turn the flooders on Kerry, the spotlight will remain on Bush, whether it's drawn to his inadequacies or to future successes in the War on Terror (I don't doubt that we'll empty the Treasury to get bin Laden before the polls open in November). After all, he's the President, and he's out there breaking heads while Kerry is kissing babies and occasionally dropping by for a Senate vote.

But maybe I'm missing something.

Posted by: Brad A. at March 11, 2004 10:10 PM

Well, first I agree, there are many Democrats who won't vote Bush no matter what happens. There are many Republicans who will never vote Kerry. That's why all the play in these campaigns is at the margins.

So the tactic would have to try to do one of two things:

1. Keep Democrats at home because they just can't stomach Kerry. With Nader in the race, pushing them to him works just as well. Getting out the vote for your base is hugely important when the country is split 50/50.
2. Switch conservative Democrats and liberal Republicans back to Bush. In the South in particular, there are plenty of conservative Democrats that are in play (see Zell Miller).

It's the second group that this tactic will probably be most successful with. If Kerry is worried about being seen as a flip-flopper due to months of waffle-attacks, then he will have to stick by and not disavow his liberal voting record (which Bush will hold back on attacking until the end). This could have a huge impact on those swing voters who (particularly in the South) are just not that liberal. It then comes down to the devil-that-you-know vs. the lefty-that-you-don't. The incumbent advantage is pretty big and Kerry needs to look better than just-as-good (or -bad).

As to your other point, yes, so far Bush has not done any negative ads. He's focusing on talking about himself and trying to be positive. But some conservatives on the periphery are starting to make noise about the waffling and the media (and not just FoxNews) are starting to cover it. Eventually, I predict, Bush will start to attack based on that waffling in order to set up the final move that paints Kerry as a pinko.

I don't know if I'm right, or if it will work, but it seems smart to me.

Posted by: richard at March 11, 2004 10:28 PM