Centerfield

I agree that the points made have some merit. But to the extent that such postings are trying to blunt criticism of Kerry by painting both Bush and Kerry as flipfloppers to the same extent, I don't think it's going to work. I think most people have a good idea were Bush stands, for better or worse, on current issues, and when Bush is contrasted with Kerry, Bush just doesn't come across as an "on the one hand this, on the other hand that" type of guy. Kerry does.

Now I personally have never seen Bush's colorblindness for gray areas as a particular strength. In fact I despise him for it in many instances. But I think a substantial majority generally likes it...they think of it as horse sense or common sense. And it's a big problem for Kerry, who is the master of the long-winded equivocating response. I think the basic mistake Kerry is prone to making is that his instinct tells him that people want to see how well he UNDERSTANDS a given issue. But mostly people just want to know what you're going to do. If your answer goes like '"this a serious problem that I plan to give a lot of future consideration to, " people think you're quacking like a weasel.

bk: I agree with much of what you say. The person who appears steady and strong will attract a certain group until someone asks 'what happened to thoses lemmings that were ahead of us?

Seriously, I didn't pay much attention to Kerry until Clark bowed out. Since then, I've been rather impressed with the aura he projects, especially in the sound bites. So I don't think the flip-flop charge will stick unless the public actually sees behavior that will confirm the charge. That could be very damaging.

Bush is ending up vulnerable by being very stubborn as we head over the fiscal cliff and moderating positions to satisfy particular parts of his base.

I hate to be the defender of the President again, but I disagree with a majority of what Kos says are his flip flops. I question that he ever took half of those positions, for instance the campaign finance reform statement... I just don't agree that he ever said he was against it. And many of those statements are simply politically loaded.

I think as an executive you have to understand that sometimes compromise is the best course of action and that every single decision you make is not going be completely in line with your ideology or statments that you have made in the past.

Lincoln was opposed to slavery, but did not call for it's abolition until it was politically neccesary. Jefferson was a libertarian intellectual throughout his entire career, and then as President he massively expanded the federal government. Did either of these men flip-flop or where they governing as if there was something bigger at stake than their personal ideology and belief system?

Maybe you disagree, but I think Bush has been caught in this same dillema. For instance, I don't believe the man supports deficits, I think he believes though, that at this time that he has no other choice for the good of the country. He is wrong, but that is another argument for another time. But you get my point that things get prickly when you are leading an entire country at one of the most important moments in its history: post 9/11.

I know what you are thinking: what is good for the goose is good for the gander. If Bush is going to contradict himself as an executive than he can't accuse Kerry of wanting both ways. Wrong.

In my crazy head anyway, Bush's decisions have come over the first term of his presidency. He has made decisions that are not neccesarily in line with his belief system because as an executive he had to in order to accomplish the greater goal. John Kerry has changed who he is more than once over the last twelve months in order to win his party's nomination and now to appear mainstream for the general election.

It doesn't mean that Kerry doesn't have the right to change his mind, and it doesn't mean that as a Senator he he doesn't have the right to vote in a way that he thinks is best for his country, although it may not bein line with statements or actions he has taken in the past. But Kerry is the one who is proposing that we change, he is the challenger. If he is going to ask us to fire the Commander in Chief than he should not only tell us what Bush has done wrong, but what he will do differently. And from my point of view we don't know what that is because the man has contradicted himself not only over the 19 years he has been in the Senate, but ever since he declared his candidacy for the Presidency and was far behind in the polls to Howard Dean.

This election is about how secure these two men make the American people feel about the direction of our country. John Kerry has outlined no consistent plan for the future, where I think it is pretty clear where the President is taking us, although every decision he has made has not neccesarily been consistent with that vision. Even if I disagreed with the President's vision, which in some ways I do and in some ways I don't, the man makes me feel better about the future than John Kerry every will.