RIVERSIDE, Calif.

DURING A RECENT political conversation with a friend who happens to be an avid Sen. Barack Obama supporter, he asserted that Sen. John McCain’s flip-flops were worse than those of his opponent because he had made more of them on key issues (a questionable assertion when one tallies the number of position changes made by both candidates). He then proceeded to justify Obama’s flip-flops as doing what he had to do to get elected in America.

Interestingly, this exchange preceded a discussion in which he also bemoaned that U.S. presidential politics was nothing more than a “game” that causes many voters to remain apathetic and disengaged from the political process. Well, characterizing politics as a game is nothing new, but my friend’s defense of Obama shows how voters, perhaps without even realizing it, validate the political “games” politicians frequently play. When it comes to supporting one candidate or another, there is a tendency for voters to get emotionally invested in political personalities. They see politicians as people they “like” or “don’t like,” instead of as individuals elected (or essentially hired) to perform a public service.

When political support is based on such superficial characteristics, candidates become people that voters feel compelled to defend from any criticism; the way they might defend a friend. Wearing the rose-colored lenses through which they see “their” candidate, his or her flaws can be overlooked while the opponent’s mistakes are ripe for condemnation.

When operating in this distorted mindset, voters are more likely to excuse a candidate’s bad behavior, tolerate obvious contradictions or displays of hypocrisy, ignore personal short-comings and, of course, rationalize his or her flip-flops on the issues. Sometimes politicians play this game to their own detriment. They stubbornly stand by fellow colleagues who make bad decisions or demonstrate poor judgment out of some misplaced sense of political loyalty or so-called ideological allegiance.

Just image how the 2006 midterm elections might have turned out for Republicans if more members of their party had been willing to challenge President Bush to alter what was clearly a failed “stay the course” Iraq war policy. They might be in different political straits today if vocal Republicans had compelled Bush to implement the ultimately successful troop-surge strategy a year earlier in 2005 rather than waiting until after a blowout election in 2006.

But the game of defending an individual (their party’s president) instead of doing what was best for the country won out, and they lost. Unfortunately, we all lose when public policy takes a back seat to this kind of ideological blindness. Instead of defending Obama’s flip-flops, my friend should have been outraged that a candidate whose ascendancy has been built on the promise of being different and bringing about political change seems to be offering just more of the same games.

The larger problem with all this political defending and rationalizing of candidates is that it misses the point of what elected office is really supposed to be about — serving the public interest. Voters’ main concern ought to be focused on holding all politicians accountable for acting in the public’s best interest. Candidates who mislead the public to secure critical votes or conveniently shift positions to suit the prevailing political winds do voters and our democracy a disservice. Moreover, when politicians can change positions with a rhetorical slight of hand, knowing gullible voters will always let them get away with it, what prevents them from using the same tactic in the future?

Why should candidates demonstrate integrity and conviction when seeking higher office if there is no political price to pay when they clearly don’t? Politicians are not our friends. Through voting, we are essentially hiring them to perform a government job. The only contact most of us will ever have with a president is through the TV screen, so getting emotionally invested in his or her personality is really beside the point.

Instead of defending politicians’ flaws, voters should defend the cause of competent leadership and accountability that puts the public interest above political self-interest. Maybe voters defend candidates they like because they just cynically accept that all politicians fib or flip-flop on their path to higher office, so why do anything to change it? That’s fine, but if voters are truly fed up with “politics as usual” and political games as they often claim, here’s a thought: Stop making it easy for candidates to keep playing them.

Chaise Nunnally is a writer in Southern California ( gcnunnally@aol.com).