Julie Jacobson/Associated Press

Last November, before the primaries were under way, Bill Clinton helped President Obama devise a strategy against Mitt Romney. As Ryan Lizza reported recently in The New Yorker, Mr. Clinton told the Obama campaign to paint Mr. Romney as a right-wing ideologue, rather than a flip-flopper: “If they defined Romney as a flip-flopper, undecided voters might think that he could return to his moderate roots once he was in office.”

Yet on many issues, such as reproductive freedom, it’s hasn’t really been necessary for the Obama campaign to make a choice.



On Tuesday, Mr. Romney told the editorial board of the Des Moines Register, “There’s no legislation with regards to abortion that I’m familiar with that would become part of my agenda.” That sounded vaguely pro-choice, or at least pro-status quo.

Later that day, Andrea Saul, a spokeswoman for the Romney campaign, told the National Review: “Governor Romney would of course support legislation aimed at providing greater protections for life.” And at a campaign stop in Ohio, Mr. Romney said “I’ll be a pro-life president. The actions I’ll take immediately are to remove funding for Planned Parenthood. It will not be part of my budget.”

So Mr. Obama could have attacked Mr. Romney as an ideologue, or a flip-flopper, or both—which is what he chose to do. In an interview with Diane Sawyer on Wednesday, he said: “This is another example of Governor Romney hiding positions he’s been campaigning on for a year and a half.”

“Is it a lie?” Ms. Sawyer asked.

“[W]hen it comes to women’s rights to control their own health care decisions, you know, what he has been saying is exactly what he believes. [Mr. Romney] thinks that it is appropriate for politicians to inject themselves in those decisions.”

He’s an ideologue. But when it’s convenient he hides that fact. So he’s also a flip-flopper.