THE CASE FOR FLIP-FLOPPING

THE CASE FOR FLIP-FLOPPING
When Resolve Turns Reckless

By John F. Kerry
Sunday, December 24, 2006; Page B01

There's something much worse than being accused of "flip-flopping": refusing to flip when it's obvious that your course of action is a flop.

I say this to President Bush as someone who learned the hard way how embracing the world's complexity can be twisted into a crude political shorthand. Barbed words can make for great politics. But with U.S. troops in Iraq in the middle of an escalating civil war, this is no time for politics. Refusing to change course for fear of the political fallout is not only dangerous -- it is immoral.

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December 20, 2006
Is "Electability" Passe?

...It would be folly to assume that the 2008 race is in the bag for Democrats. But if the national mood is in the Democrats favor, shouldn't Democrats use this opportunity to find a candidate based on their own criteria, not the assumed criteria of others?

This is an especially vital question given the horrendous track record of Democrats in judging the relative electablity of their own candidates. It seems hard to believe today that flip-flopping John Kerry was considered a better general election option than anti-war Howard Dean or southern, articulate John Edwards. Kerry argued strenuosly that his war record would be an asset and said that if Republicans dared to attack his patriotism, he'd taunt them to bring it on. That worked about as well as Bush's taunts to the Iraqi insurgents.

Party stalwarts somehow believed in 1988 that Mike Dukakis was their most electable option and convinced themselves that Mondale would do better than Hart.

If current trends continue -- the U.S. stays in Iraq, the war continues to go badly, John McCain solidifies his hold on the GOP but slowly bleeds away independents -- any number of Democratic candidates will be electable in 2008. Given the fact that this is likely to be the strongest Democratic field in decades, it might be time for the party to search for a new criteria for picking a candidate.

The best President.

-- Dan Conley