DUCKS, FLIPS AND PANDERS

By Michael Kramer

The hypocrisy of presidential candidates is so familiar that voters must often try to figure out which politician is lying least -- and already the 1996 campaign is shaping up as an all-time whopper. Rarely has there been a presidential race with so many new positions and flip-flops this early in the game. Consider how, on just a few of the issues, the Republican candidates, in searching for an advantage, are rushing to rise above principle:

Affirmative action, the hottest of the current season's hot-button issues, has provoked near unanimity. Every Republican wants to "revisit," if not entirely junk, the minority-preference programs begun in the 1960s. California's Governor Pete Wilson, famous as a trend spotter, vigorously defended affirmative action when he was San Diego's mayor in the 1970s. No more. Just as Wilson rode his state's anti-immigrant sentiment to re-election last year, he is now arranging for an anti-affirmative-action initiative on California's 1996 ballot. That measure, he hopes, will draw a stark contrast between him and Bill Clinton, who so far has only said he is "reviewing" the issue. Wilson wins chutzpah marks for reneging on his pledge to complete his gubernatorial term, but his switch on affirmative action wins only second place in this category. Top honors go to Bob Dole. In 1985 Dole successfully protested Ron-ald Reagan's desire to revoke the key Executive Order on affirmative action that prohibited job discrimination. Today Dole is urging the repeal of such orders without even bothering to intone the fatuous argument that they've served their purpose and are no longer necessary.

Gun control is another issue on which the front runner is shifting. While hardly a restriction advocate, Dole did vote for an early version of the Brady Bill. Now, in a bow to the gun lobby's clout in G.O.P. primaries, Dole favors scrapping the ban on assault weapons enacted as part of last year's crime bill. "He wants to eat into Phil Gramm's strength among hard-core conservatives now that Wilson is challenging him for the moderates," explains a Dole adviser. "It hurts his reputation for standing up for what he believes, but he's betting that no one can look less principled than Clinton. And Dole's got to win the nomination first."

Social Security enjoys a consensus: no one wants to touch it. With his Ph.D. in economics, Phil Gramm used to declare candidly that fiscal sanity demanded reforming Social Security, even if that meant trimming the benefits of the seniors currently receiving them. Now Gramm is leading the battle to phase out the earnings threshold that limits the benefits of well-off recipients. Wilson, like most of the others, is punting altogether. At a March 30 breakfast thrown for him by Henry Kissinger in New York City, Wilson deflected a question about Social Security: until the public is better educated about the problem, he said, politicians can't deal with it seriously. On this one, at least, Dole has displayed some of the courage he hopes will carry him to the White House on his third try. When the balanced-budget amendment reached the Senate last month, Dole could have picked up enough votes to pass it by including language that would have exempted Social Security from any cuts. He refused and the measure failed. "It's bad enough that we're not doing anything on Social Security,'' says Warren Rudman, the former New Hampshire Senator and entitlement-reform leader who's supporting Dole, "but at least Bob didn't let the situation become more fouled up-and he did that when people were saying he'd forfeit his leadership credentials if he couldn't get the bba passed. He could have caved, but he didn't."

Abortion is causing its normal fits, and the waffling prize on this issue goes to Lamar Alexander. As recently as last summer, Alexander was telling prospective supporters that his views were too nuanced for labels. "That was O.K. for pro-choicers like me,'' says Mary Louise Smith, a leading Iowa G.O.P. activist. "I really don't understand his change." Alexander today describes himself as pro-life -- with a tortured caveat about "not wanting the government to subsidize, encourage or prohibit" abortion. When I asked if he would permit military personnel to get abortions at government hospitals (as Clinton allows, in a reversal of the Reagan-Bush policies), Alexander said, "What are you talking about?" Since then, one Alexander aide has told me the candidate would restore the old prohibition; a second has said Alexander would continue Clinton's order; and a third has confessed that "our position needs work."

Foreign policy is on no one's radar scope yet, except Richard Lugar's. Usually when matters abroad are discussed, Lugar's expertise commands bipartisan respect. But now that he's after the big prize, even Lugar has veered offtrack. When Saddam Hussein recently jailed two Americans for straying into Iraq-an action requiring deft diplomacy-Lugar waxed on about sending the Marines to rescue them.

What is it about running for President that often brings out the worst in politicians? Maybe the person best equipped to answer that question is Bill Clinton, whose feckless to-and-froing has caused so many Republicans to seek his job. But now they're embracing the very same tactics, which may guarantee for them the same disaffection that has caused the President to be so widely derided as an easy mark.