The Inconsistent Waffle Factor: Voters more likely to punish Democrats who waffle

WP: The Inconsistent Waffle Factor
By Shankar Vedantam
Monday, October 8, 2007; Page A03

....The question of why Clinton is not being punished for what some say is her about-face on the war is vexing the Obama campaign. But it is also of increasing interest to political scientists and psychologists.

Waffling, or the perception of political inconsistency, played a big role in the 2004 presidential election, when Sen. John F. Kerry's contortions provided President Bush with endless ammunition. Studies have repeatedly shown that voters say they want consistent leaders. Evidence, however, has recently emerged to suggest there may be basic differences in how Republican and Democratic voters perceive waffling, and that voters may view inconsistency differently among Republican and Democratic politicians.

In one experiment conducted in Obama's home state by psychologists Cynthia Nordstrom and Susan Thomas of Southern Illinois University in Edwardsville, volunteers were painted a picture of an inconsistent politician. The psychologists found that while waffling among all candidates was frowned upon, voters were more likely to punish Democrats who waffled. "Moreover," they noted in an article they published this year in the North American Journal of Psychology, "the Democratic candidate was perceived to be more of a waffler and was less likely to be voted for than the Republican candidate."

If Democrats are held to a tougher standard for inconsistent stances, why have Clinton's positions on Iraq not come under greater fire? Nordstrom's results might have been influenced by the 2004 election, in which Democrats were painted as wafflers. But, Nordstrom and others said, it is also possible that Clinton and Kerry have been treated differently because he was facing a general election, whereas, so far, she has dealt only with Democratic voters. Michael Tomz, a political scientist at Stanford, said partisans might be generally more willing to forgive waffling among politicians from their own party....

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Nordstrom said several factors that have dovetailed since 2004 also may have changed the way inconsistency is perceived by the American electorate as a whole. The immense unpopularity of the Iraq war may have caused voters to value consistency less highly than other qualities, she said. What this means is that when public opinion on an issue swings overwhelmingly in one direction, voters may care less about waffling and more about having a politician agree with them. President Bush's unyielding stance on the Iraq war may have also given consistency a bad name, Nordstrom added....Finally, (Hillary Hoffman, a psychologist at the University of Miami) pointed out that for many Democratic voters, Clinton simply might not be perceived as being inconsistent at all. "Clinton is saying she didn't change her mind, but that the circumstances she knows now she didn't know then," Hoffman said....

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/07/AR2007100701112.html

After all, most rational people change their minds when new evidence is presented in any given scenario.

On Clinton specifically, someone put it nicely here last week. At the time Clinton cast her vote for the IWR, the majority of Americans and a plurality of Democrats were in favor of the war. Clinton's position has slowly changed along with that of other Americans. To them, to hold Clinton accountable is a reminder that they, too, were wrong. No one likes to be reminded they were wrong.

Now, in regards to all of this vexing Obama's camp, they should know better.

Finally, what Democrat has actually been punished for "waffling?" Kerry garnered more votes than any Democrat in history in an election that was based on national security. He suffered more from the perception that Dems are weak in that area (cleverly exploited in 2004) than any "waffling."

were in the forefront in aiding and abetting the Republican talking point that Kerry was inconsistent. Joe Biden recently took the time on the Senate floor to state that Kerry's position has been absolutely consistent since before Bush invaded.
http://www.kerryvision.net/2007/09/biden_gives_props_to_senator_k.html

In 2004, Knight Ridder was one of the few media giants that had consistent good reporting on Iraq. Unlike the NYT and the WP, they were not complicit in pushing for and then defending the war. The coverage of the NYT, WP and the AP, in 2004 was biased by the fact that they knew Kerry would change the policy - as he said he would. Look at the coverage of Bush's second inaugural address, where he said openly that their intent was "spreading democracy". Neither of these major papers pointed out that that was not what they told the American people from 2002 through 2004.

Here is what a Knight Ridder examination of the RW attack that Kerry was inconsistent:
The journalist begins the article with this summary, then retraces everything:

"Sen. John Kerry set his jaw, and even sighed at one point, as he confronted anew the confusion over his stand on the Iraq war, a fog that has enveloped his candidacy for months.

"I have one position on Iraq," Kerry insisted this week during a rare news conference. "One position."

In fact, he's right, his image as a "flip-flopper" notwithstanding."
http://media.www.pittnews.com/media/storage/paper879/news/2004/09/27/PittCision/Despite.Accusations.Kerrys.Position.On.Iraq.Has.Been.Consistent-1789042.shtml

Had the WP or NYT been as accurate and fair in their reporting, we would likely have a President Kerry. What is truly odd, is that they pushed the Kerry is inconsistent theme at the same time they pushed the equally untrue theme that Kerry had no plan - though last year they all recognized that the ISG proposals were like what Kerry was proposing back then. The papers now reference the flip flopping as CW, rather than admit their own complicity and dishonesty.

Hillary Clinton actually has been less consistent than Kerry was. (With Kerry, the same concepts are in a Sept 2002 anti-war NYT op-ed, his IWR speech, he speech at Georgetown before the war, and during the campaign. It could be summarized as you only go to war as a last resort and a very heavy emphasis on diplomacy)

I don't know - at this minute - if Hillary is in favor of having 70,000 troops in Iraq or if she will bring the troops home. I am glad she now supports the basic pillars of Kerry/Feingold - including a deadline. But, then there are comments within the same week which make me question what her position really is.

editted to clean up an ambiguous pronoun.

and as with her husband, one cannot ever ascertain her true positions, for the Heisenberg uncertainty principle dictates that her position depends entirely on that of the observer.

people thought it to be. "Resolve" "Consistency" when the idea
is wrong may no longer be seen as a virtue.
It can and is seen as stubborness after a while. Just a thought.

I still run across raging 24%ers who are not aware of Dubya's own flip flopping, and who think he's still doing a good job.

At the time it started, the Iraq war had great support in the general population.

I think people are saying to themselves "Bush fooled me, so I can't blame anyone else if they were also fooled or not given all the information".

The left-wing frame of leadership is that of a careful considerer who makes rational, weighed, balanced decisions on how to proceed; the natural right-wing-frame interpretation of this is a perception of a milquetoast who's so afraid of making a bad decision that he is incapable of leading in crisis. A charge of "flip-flopper" adds to the negative mystique.

The right-wing frame of leadership is that of The Decider, a leader who makes decisions based on his own interpretations of the situation and sticks to it regardless of the situation. The natural left-wing-frame interpretation of this is that of a clumsy, hardheaded idiot. A charge of flip-flopper does not mesh with either the right- or left-wing interpretation of this frame, and the claim is lost in the ensuing dissonance.

Hillary Clinton is an interesting case; while her record is quite liberal*, she has over the last few years positioned herself so that she has no difficulty adopting the right-wing frame. It will be largely impossible to successfully call her a flip-flopper--and due to her ability to shift back into the left-wing frame, it will be largely impossible to successfully call her a hardhead. Any successful attempt at defeating her will have to be better-thought-out than what we've seen so far: her uncharismatic personality, her gender, and her husband are the only "weaknesses" she really has as a politician, and those are marginal. This race is hers to lose now; beating her in the primary or the general would require a Dean-like media meltdown.


*please don't claim it's not by cherry-picking votes; one could do that to "prove" any politician with more than a year's experience is anything you like. Incidentally, that is the danger of running Senators for the Presidency.

Has she really been able to adpot the RW position of sticking to a position no matter what. She has on her vote - though her explanation has softened to Kerry's 2004 explanation from a somewhat more aggressive one. On, what should be the policy now in Iraq, she did turn completely around in a half year. After being one of the people most against Kerry/Feingold, she now uses Kerryesqe language to say the Iraqis will not make political concessions if they are not given a deadline.

To me, the issue of what would you do is the more significant of the two - it does show what you will do. But, I can see that the issue of the vote is the more volatile issue causing more fireworks than anything addressing the candidates' world views or any insight into what they would do in Iraq or in other troubled spots in the future.

Your first paragraph does explain what I have had difficulty understanding. That description in the first sentence fits Kerry to a T and did even if you look back to the story of his Siver Star. To me, this is so clearly what you want in a leader - in addition to passionately caring about righting wrongs, and having a working conscience. Even in the first debate, Kerry addressed the difference. He said that you could be certain and be wrong - and then spoke of how when you realize that a policy is wrong, you work to make it right. (In fact, he often used variations of that with reference to both Vietnam and Iraq.

It is interesting to see how that is turned around to be seen as indecisive. (It also suggests that that - among other reasons is why they had to smear Kerry's service record and make it less care that those very characteristics made him a very good leader under the toughest personal circumstances. countering the RW theme.)