Paltering and politicians love each other. It is hard to find – not to say that it would be impossible, any politician that hasn’t lied at all or that has deliberately unclear about an issue, especially when they are running for office and every single vote counts. I haven’t found any evidence or a research paper about the average “paltering” of an ordinary person and a politician to contrast their differences. Maybe if a research like that was done, we would be surprised if it turned out that politicians don’t lie more than the average citizen, or that even people in their day to day live make a wider use of the “white lies” than electoral candidates do.
If that was the result, we shouldn’t be shocked at all. After all, politicians measure every word they say and the intonation used because their final aim is no other that to gain the people’s confidence, which hopefully would be translated into votes. Who would trust a politician that has been caught lying or that seems to have double standards depending on the context? – Yes, there are many cases which people vote for their candidate blindly, regardless their conflictive past or the falsity of his or her word. But the norm is that paltering has political consequences because people are considered to be rational, and rational people seek for a trust-worthy person to be their representative as they need to be sure that the candidate is the best person that could represent their own interest.
For instance, when the former Spanish Prime Minister, José María Aznar, denied in front of the whole nation that Al-Qaeda was behind the bloodiest terrorist attack that Spain has ever experienced, and gave another version of the story that didn’t match with the information the media was giving at the time, the paltering was evident. As a consequence, three days later in the general elections day, the ruling party lost the elections against all the polls predictions that gave the conservative party (Partido Popular) the victory.
So, if your party is the one in power or you are competing in a presidential campaign, it wouldn’t be a good idea to palter (as it has to be deliberately). The winner takes it all, and just one mistake on a touchy issue could sentence your career to death.
Michele Bachmann can be the American example that illustrates how a promising career can fade by having double standards, or by having certain beliefs that you end up giving up because they are not “popular” if the campaign is aiming a wider scope of voters.
One of her biggest contradictions is the treatment she gives to LGTBQ people. While she was only a senator of Minnesota in the year 2004, she gave an hour speech where she expressed her views about homosexuality at that time. In that rally, Bachmann said she was not “bashing” people who are gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender, and added: “we need to have profound compassion for people who are dealing with the very real issue of sexual dysfunction in their life, and sexual identity disorders.” “It’s sad,” she continues. “Any of you who have members of your family that are in the lifestyle – we have a member of our family that is – this is not funny. It’s a very sad life (…) it it is “profoundly sad to recognize that almost all, if not all, individuals who have gone into the lifestyle have been abused at one time in their life.” Her speech is really worth from hearing, and you can do it here. Anyone that hears the audio or read these words would disagree that the language she uses is insulting, full of homophobic prejudices and loaded with a sense of heterosexual superiority.
However, after saying that being gay is being a part of “Satan” or that homosexuality is a “sexual dysfunction”, she affirmed in a T.V interview that she doesn´t “judge gay people” (1:18 of the YouTube video). Also, she says she believes that everybody has honor and dignity, regardless their sexual orientation, in spite the several insults she freely threw to the gay community.
Many polls, like the Real Clear Politics, suggest a fall of Michele Bachmann’s popularity, which is now sitting in the sixth place, with an average of 4.8% support. This is a huge backward step, more taking into account that in July, she was the second best favorite after Mitt Romney. Seema Mehta, a journalist from Los Angeles Times suggests that Bachmann may be doing this to herself but, “the danger for Bachmann is that her misstatements are so pronounced and so numerous that they erode her effort to regain footing in the presidential race.”
The abuse of paltering and the incapacity to keep creating sympathy among voters after repeated episodes of lies or misstatements can be a deathly combination.
ME as a Journalist 