The Hobgoblins of Politics: Change and Consistency

By MELINDA HENNEBERGER

As Rice Krispie Treats sailed over John McCain's head -- lobbed by a reporter passing out snacks on the campaign bus -- the senator was asked how he had changed over the course of the campaign.

"Do you want to know the real truth?" McCain began, and everyone else stopped talking.

"I have changed a little bit, to try to be more considerate of people who ask me questions -- not the media, but in town hall meetings. Sometimes I'd get offended if somebody stood up and said, 'You're a crook.' I used to flash back at them," he said, raising the subject of his own soft spot, the temper critics have raised as an issue in the race. "But I've learned to treat people with respect, even when they're there hammering you. I've gotten a thicker skin." Asked why, after 17 years of give and take in Congress, that hadn't happened before, he said, "Lack of maturity, maybe?" and laughed along with his audience.

McCain's almost unheard of willingness to evolve in public and his eagerness to admit to past mistakes, both in his personal life and on policy, have helped set him apart and define him as a different kind of candidate. He does a whole riff on the stupidity of his vote against making Martin Luther King's birthday a national holiday and returns again and again to the subject of how he blew his first marriage.

And however it turns out, this particular experiment in authenticity has opened a debate about why most politicians and their handlers consider consistency so important when candidates, just like other people, do change their minds occasionally. Or have their minds changed for them, once they get elected.

Susan Estrich, who ran Michael Dukakis' 1988 presidential campaign, said the impulse to appear consistent above almost all else is a fearful response but not altogether unwarranted. "The concern is that if you admit any weakness, it will be exploited," she said. "But the lesson of this year is that the best possible political strategy is to seem authentic."

"The game of 'Gotcha!' is no fun," Estrich said, when the candidate himself keeps reminding us where he's gone awry.

Several conservative thinkers said the post-Clinton moment is a time when someone who is willing to say he was wrong, and how he's changed, may hold particular appeal.

Some polls suggest that voters, for whatever reason, do consider McCain more believable than the other candidates. The latest New York Times/CBS News poll found last week that 49 percent of those surveyed think he says what he really believes most of the time, compared to 42 percent who think that of Bill Bradley, 31 percent of Vice President Al Gore and 30 percent of Gov. George W. Bush.

Only 33 percent think McCain says what he thinks people want to hear, compared to 38 percent who think the same of Bradley, and 61 percent who say that about both Gore and Bush.

McCain is hardly the first American politician to score points with a nicely done apology. But Alan J. Lichtman, chairman of the history department at American University, who specializes in presidential politics, said McCain has wielded the mea culpa in new way. It works particularly well for him, Lichtman said, because "the McCain model fits with the whole image he's trying to establish as different, willing to buck his party, speak his mind, and as part of that, be like all of us and say, 'I've made mistakes, I'm admitting the mistakes and I'm moving on.' It's so effective it's hard to see how you even get nailed on it."

Yet where in politics is the line between intellectual growth and pandering? And how do voters know when the candidate is sincere -- or when his evolution is complete?

"If there's a change, people deserve to know why," said Karenna Gore Schiff, Gore's daughter and an adviser to his campaign. "This election process is really a little like a job interview. As a voter, I'm hiring someone to do a job for me, and I want to know what they're going to do and what their approach is. I personally wouldn't place a lot of value on complete rigidity through 20-plus years of public service, but the valid question is, is this person going to change their position again?"

To varying degrees, McCain's competitors seem to adhere to the more traditional view that it's a lot more important to be seen as consistent than as capable of learning from missteps.

Gore insists that he has always -- "always, always, always," he said in a recent interview -- fully supported abortion rights. But in the 1980s, as a member of the House, Gore's votes got an 84 approval percent rating from the National Right to Life Committee, according to the group's executive director, David O'Steen. "I've been in meetings with him," O'Steen said, "and he put himself forward as opposing abortion."

Estrich said, "Nobody cares 20 years ago what he said about abortion, and there would have been no issue at all" if he hadn't given them the honesty issue.

Bush somehow maintains that there is no discrepancy between his stated belief that abortions should be available in cases of rape, incest or to save the life of the mother and his statement that the GOP platform should not be changed to include these exceptions.

Without ever indicating that he's moved an inch, Bush today takes credit for protecting patients against managed care abuses, even though he vetoed such legislation in 1995 and, after voicing serious reservations, enabled an HMO liability law to take effect without his signature in 1997.

Bradley seems to have combined the worst of both models -- mostly sticking to the "never let them see you evolve" philosophy, but then publicly switching to support ethanol subsidies, a move that is hard to explain as anything other than an epiphany inspired by a desire to win the Iowa caucuses.

Some see McCain's openness as just another strategy.

"He says all the time, 'I was wrong on that vote,"' said Ralph Reed, the former Christian Coalition leader who is advising Bush. His own candidate is not likely to follow suit: "There's a point where flexibility can begin to look like waffling, and voters want consistency," Reed said. "McCain has learned the value of winning an argument by conceding the point, but that works better in the cloakroom than in a primary."

And even if it does seem like a decent strategy, several political consultants said that what McCain is attempting is not likely to catch on.

"It's too early to tell whether it will play in November, though I personally find it refreshing, like a shower after seven and a half years of Clinton," said Scott Reed, Bob Dole's former campaign manager. "But even if McCain, through a unique history and background, seems to be able to get away with it, you can't carbon copy it with other candidates."

McCain himself does not necessarily recommend it.

"It almost doesn't matter if it's a good idea or not," he said in an interview. "It's just the only way I could do it."

-- Vern (bacon17@ibm.net), February 20, 2000

Answers

LANSING -- Arizona Sen. John McCain and Texas Gov. George W. Bush are locked in a virtual tie with voting just two days away in the fiercely contested Michigan Republican primary race. McCain leads Bush 40-38, a difference within the statistical margin of error, according to a Detroit News statewide survey of 600 very likely primary voters. The poll was conducted Tuesday through Thursday. Former Ambassador Alan Keyes, the final candidate in the GOP contest, drew 4 percent support. Just a week earlier, McCain had a nine-point lead in the roller-coaster contest. Bush had a 3-to-1 margin a mnth ago. The outcome of Saturday's South Carolina primary could tilt Michigan opinion again. "McCain's honest, he's not pompous and I get the feeling he makes up his own mind instead of waiting to see what other people think," said political independent Aileen Hyne, a 61-year-old writer from Ann Arbor. Donna Berzac, a 50-yearold teacher from Livonia, is an independent for Bush. "I like the fact that he is very pro-education and I really think he has done some good things in the state of Texas," she said. Steve Mitchell, who conducted The News' poll, said: "This is just a horse race, a statistical dead heat, that will be decided by voter turnout." All 6.7 million registered voters are eligible to take part in Tuesday's primary, regardless of political affiliation.

Copyright 2000, The Detroit News

-- Vern (bacon17@ibm.net), February 20, 2000.