I'm Maggie Smith, and this is The Slowdown.

I remember in 2004, during the Bush-Carrie election season, one of the criticisms

lobbed against John Kerry was that he was a flip-flopper.

It was a derogatory term meant to suggest that he was changing his mind for political gain.

The attack ads at the time were plentiful, and many of them used the term flip-flopper

to convince voters that Kerry couldn't be trusted.

He might promise one thing and then do another.

He might change his mind yet again.

Flip-flopper sounds impulsive and half-baked, and by design, political strategists know exactly what they're doing when they assemble these rhetorical weapons and deploy them on the

public via TV and radio ads. But I remember feeling frustrated by this framing at the time,

as someone who is, thanks in large part to poetry, comfortable with nuance and ambiguity, and yes, even reconsidering

one's positions. What does changing one's mind really demonstrate? I think it takes maturity

to reconsider old ideas and opinions and hold them up to scrutiny. It takes

maturity to take in new information, new advice, and new experiences, and to say, you know what?

I used to think X, but I'm older and wiser now, and I've had some enlightening conversations,

and now I believe why.

I think that shows someone who is intelligent and nimble, not a slave to their earlier opinions.

I think that demonstrates growth, and that's a good thing.

I've changed my mind about plenty in my life, thanks to new experiences and new data. I'm sure

I'll keep changing, too, and I won't see that as a weakness, but instead as a strength.

I have fixed core values, honesty, integrity, compassion, but I want to be flexible in my thinking,

and I'm trying to raise my kids with all of this in mind too.

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