The Character Factor: How We Judge America's Presidents

Chapter 5. Character, Consistency, and Campaign Promises

Character, Consistency, Campaign Promises : 91         Character, Consistency, and Campaign Promises k I stick by my principles, and one of my principles is flexibility. —  Presidential promises and consistency are important because of the basic democratic premise that citizens need to know what politicians intend to do in office in order to make informed judgments before casting their ballots. If politicians did not regularly keep their promises, voters would have much less information upon which to base their electoral choices. Conventional wisdom in American public opinion holds that politicians cannot be trusted and that they seldom keep their promises. A skeptical public, reinforced by negative press coverage, heavily discounts campaign promises,yet feels that it is important for candidates to be consistent and to fully intend to keep their promises.1 But contrary to the conventional wisdom, presidents most often do make serious efforts to keep their campaign promises. This chapter deals with the two issues of consistency and promise keeping in presidential candidates.First discussed is the issue of consistency, with Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt providing examples of inconsistency. Then the chapter takes up campaign promise keeping in general and specific examples of promises kept and promises broken. Consistency Promise keeping and consistency are important because they reflect on the character of a candidate. If a person continually shifts positions on important issues and does not keep promises, how can we trust that person in other matters? Stephen Carter states this position well in his book Integrity: Surely we want to believe that our politicians have come to their principles after careful and sustained thought, in some cases a 92 : THE CHARACTER FACTOR career’s worth; and if they jettison too quickly what we thought they believed, we have before us the evidence that they lack the first ingredient of integrity: the ability to think long and hard before making difficult moral decisions. Why does a change of tune cause us to admire our leaders less? The reason must be that when politicians are able to change so thoroughly what they have claimed to stand for, we begin to question whether their previously stated views were preceded by anything like the degree of moral reflectiveness that is necessary for us to have faith in what they say.2 That is, consistency is an important dimension of integrity, and we want leaders of integrity.One of the most devastating charges that can be made against politicians is that they flip-flop on important issues. Presidential candidates of the s and s had to deal with the divisive issue of governmental control of abortion. They had to walk fine lines between the two sides,knowing that extremists at both ends of the spectrum would attack them for changing or moderating their stance on this contentious issue. A change of position would surely bring down the wrath of one side or the other. Yet electoral victories in American politics are created by forging coalitions of various factions that stretch political support from the core of their political party to the independents and moderates in the middle of the political spectrum.Thus candidates often see ambiguity on issues and a shifting of position to reflect public opinion as necessary in order to be elected. Voters often admire those whose convictions are numerous, explicit , firm, and unyielding, but these politicians seldom win elections in the United States. The reasons that candidates for office may waffle on issues during a campaign include their own possible uncertainty about the best policy to solve a problem and the need to keep their options open in order to adapt to changing circumstances. Elected presidents might reverse a policy position because of changing circumstances, exposure to new information, or a genuine of change of mind after careful thought. Besides, contentious issues in American politics often have compelling arguments on both sides. This chapter’s premise is that consistency, as desirable as it might be, is often very difficult to maintain if one is to succeed in American politics. An example that illustrates this point is Abraham Lincoln’s public statements on the slavery issue over the course of his political career.Although Character, Consistency, Campaign Promises : 93 ultimately as responsible as any other single American for abolishing slavery and considered one of our greatest presidents, Lincoln in his public statements seemed to be inconsistent about the status of blacks and what the U...