If you live in New England and pay the slightest passing attention to sports – even if you’re not a Patriots fan – you’ve probably heard that Tom Brady has been using the word “pliability” a lot in describing his TB12 workout method. The word means “easily bent” or “flexible,” and to Tom, this is a good thing. He believes it’s what’s allowed him to succeed at such a high level for so long, dominating the game into his early 40s and continuing to win Super Bowls and MVP awards. He may well be right – after all, it’s hard to doubt the greatest quarterback of all time.
In politics, though, it’s a different story. Certainly there are plenty of consultants, talking heads and candidates themselves who will argue that pliability is a good thing. They’ll tell you it’s good for candidates to talk in broad generalities, as well as to avoid specific issues and direct answers as much as possible. That allows voters to project their own desires onto the candidates, believing whatever it is they want to hear. That’s how candidates can get away with ridiculous promises, like saying they’ll balance the budget without raising taxes or reducing entitlement spending.
This approach does have its place in politics. All of us have issues we care somewhat about, are passionate about or don’t care about in the slightest. So do candidates. It would be ridiculous for candidates to take firm, detailed positions on every possible issue and then never deviate in the slightest. If one did that, compromise would become completely impossible and nothing would ever get done. It’s unrealistic to expect this of any candidate, no matter how experienced or knowledgeable they are.
However, it’s equally absurd and unrealistic for any candidate – in either party, for any office – to avoid taking any firm positions on anything. That candidate clearly has no moral compass, or is simply so unfamiliar with the issues that they don’t know anything.
The danger of this sort of candidate is not that they’ll lose, it’s that they’ll win – and then be willing to negotiate anything away. These sorts of candidates are all to easily influenced by lobbyists, or by staff, or by the opposition. They not only bend in the slightest wind, they completely collapse, leaving their supporters with nothing to stand on. It’s difficult to stand by someone like that because you never know when they’re going to toss you or something you believe in under the bus.
When evaluating candidates from either party in the gubernatorial primary, it’s important to find the middle ground between these two extremes. We all need to look for the candidate who will stand with us on the issues we’re most passionate about, while recognizing we’ll never agree with them on everything and there will be times when they let us down.
For Republicans – who just had their party convention this weekend at the Augusta Civic Center – many of these issues will be related to positions taken by Gov. LePage over the past eight years. It’s been said to one degree or another that all of the Republican gubernatorial candidates are trying to emulate LePage, and that’s a fair assessment. It’s no surprise when the party in power is headed into an open-seat election after two terms.
What’s exceptional in this case is the outsized influence Gov. LePage has had on the Maine Republican Party for the past eight years. None of the candidates has been running on a platform of reversing course from what’s been done under his administration, and that’s because LePage is still popular among most Republicans. The question for Republican voters to consider is not which candidate is most like LePage overall, but which specific areas they are or are not like LePage, and whether that’s a plus or a minus.
There may be some candidates who differ from LePage in certain areas, whether that’s fiscal or social issues. Some of them may be slightly more willing to accommodate funding for Medicaid expansion, for example, or be less willing to compromise on taxes. As we rapidly approach the June primary, these differences will, hopefully, become more clear.
Right now, though, it’s a fool’s errand to attempt to predict the outcome of the primaries in either party. As a voter, rather than worrying about who will win, all of us (in both parties) should find the candidate who most closely matches our values. No matter what anyone else says, that’s the best way to decide who to vote for.
Jim Fossel, a conservative activist from Gardiner, worked for Sen. Susan Collins. He can be contacted at:
Twitter: @jimfossel
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