On Political Advising

As regular readers of this blog know, I am a part-time, unpaid adviser to Mitt Romney. When taking on a job like this, one does not expect all of one's policy advice to be followed. In fact, I would be suspicious of someone who agreed with me 100 percent of the time. (I have enough internal conflicts that I myself only reach 93 percent.)

Similarly, no adviser to a political candidate can be expected to share all of the candidate's judgments about the dozens of policies on which the candidate must opine. Hence, one gets articles like this on the fact that Romney and I have different views regarding the immigration bill.

No sensible voter would think less of a candidate who has advisers who sometimes disagree with him. But a sensible voter should think less of a candidate who has no advisers who ever disagree with him.