If your claim is that running for election more often prevents flip-flops, I'd disagree with you there.
I see only assertions here, not facts - please explain.

Now that I can agree with.

Even with the massive turnouts in the dem primary, I think this general could be a very low turn out. Rabid Hillary supporters won't be excited about Obama, Obama cultists wouldn't be excited about Hillary, and McCain has no clue how to appeal to his base.

I have no facts to back up either of these two assertions....just my take. It does seem to me that if you flip flop today and you are up for re-election either this year or the next you are much more likely to be called out on it then if your next election is 5 years away.

One thing is true.... Kerry, Gore, and Dole were all painted, successfully I might add, as flip floppers.....they were all Senators.

One can also flip flop as a governor, particularly on issues like abortion, as Reagan, Clinton and Romney did.

It has nothing to do with the position. It has to do with character and the fact that they are politicians. Politicains make their living, really, getting votes, so trying to appeal to the crowd they are speaking to is their bread and butter.

There is a difference between a change of heart on an issue and a change for political expediency. The judgement of which it is is truly in the eye of the observer.

Lol- so McCain has a 'change of heart', and Obama's is politically expeditious, right? Just a WAG here......

McCain's playing of the (by now, very tired) Terrorist Card is using fear to get votes. Obama's merely trying to buy them.:D

(Actually, given the state of the market I think most people are glad it hasn't been privatized at this point in time).

Plus there is the assumption that casting a vote based on simply the fact that it is the more popular position of the constituency is somehow a bad thing.

Yes, we elect people so that they can use their own judgment but that doesn't necessarily make decision contrary to the preference of their constituency necessarily righter, though it may be politically braver.

There does come a point where personal conviction becomes obstinacy. Unfortunately it is an easy task to find countless examples of either outcome. So only in the rearview mirror can we be sure. So, it seems a slightly silly thing to fetishize (holding a position regardless of new information or the general feelings of your constituency).

And, either way, it is easy to spin depending on your feelings on the politician.

I know a new word.......can't wait to use it in a conversation tomorrow.

Now I just got to figure out how to slip it into a pitch for a new mattress.

Not what I'm saying at all. I believe a few posts ago I wrote "McCain flips more than Kerrey did", or some such thing.

I'm with Alex on how one votes while in office related to personal opinion vs. what the constituency wants. We are a representative republic, after all. What bugs me is being on the campaign trail saying X to group A in city 1 and -X to group B in city 2.

This point is exactly why I disagree with sleepyjeff. More public eye means more flip flopping.