Ask him again tomorrow — that is, if he wins. If tomorrow he goes back to being “private citizen Biden,” it won’t make any difference what he says.
In fact, it doesn’t make any difference now since his stance on any particular topic tends to vary with the way the wind blows. In an interview in August with ABC News reporter David Muir, he said unequivocally that he would shut down the economy if the scientists tell him to do that.
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He began taking heat for that position almost instantaneously, and yesterday he did a 180, telling Florida NBC affiliate WESH that his plan to deal with the coronavirus” does not include a countrywide lockdown.” He went on to add, “I’m going to lock down the virus,” whatever that meant.
Biden is no stranger to flip-flops when political expedience dictates he do so. In June, he announced that he was abandoning his career-long support for the Hyde Amendment, which bars the use of federal funds to pay for abortion except to save the life of the woman or if the pregnancy arises from incest or rape.
His sudden for federal-funded abortion prompted former Obama campaign manager David Axelrod to observe that the about-face wasn’t merely a flip-flop but instead what he dubbed a “flip-flop-flip.” He recalled a moment earlier in the campaign season when a “voter challenged him on the question of Hyde,” prompting Biden to say “he would reverse this policy.”
Then the next day when it came to light, the campaign put out a statement that said, no, he still believes in the Hyde amendment. Then there was a furor and last night he flipped again. So that was a flip, flop, flip, which is never a good thing in politics and it raises question about his own performance and his own steadiness and his campaign’s performance.
