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Gov. Schwarzenegger of California calls political flipflopping 'a wonderful thing'

Other News Materials 14 July 2008 01:56 (UTC +04:00)

Political flip-floppers have a fan: California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

In that vein, Schwarzenegger advised Republican presidential candidate John McCain to move from the right to the center for the general election - and suggested his Democratic rival, Barack Obama, move to the center from the left.

"Flip-flopping is getting a bad rap, because I think it is great," Schwarzenegger told ABC television's "This Week" in an interview broadcast Sunday.

"Someone has made a mistake. I mean, someone has, for 20 or 30 years, been in the wrong place with his idea and with his ideology and says, 'You know something? I changed my mind. I am now for this.' As long as he's honest or she's honest, I think that is a wonderful thing. You can change your mind," Schwarzenegger said. "I have changed my mind on things and there is nothing wrong with it."

Schwarzenegger said Republican candidates, after getting nominated, can "wander a little bit more to the left, and hopefully he (McCain) will do that. And the same is with Obama, that what he has done consistently has been very much to the left and he's now more and more going to the right."

In 2004, Republicans charged that Democratic nominee John Kerry was a flip-flopper on a number of issues and criticized him accordingly. This year's presidential campaign has brought similar charges and counter-charges between the Republican and Democratic camps. But Schwarzenegger, an advocate of governing from the center, shrugs off changes in policy.

"That's what they have to do. In politics out there, they always say, 'Well, now, I don't know anymore what he really stands for. He has just changed his mind' ... and he's flip-flopping and all those kinds of things," he said, according ro AP.

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