AS IN hip-hop, the political manoeuvre called flip-flop needs some nifty steps in order not to fall flat on one's face. Both Mr John McCain and Mr Barack Obama seem adept at it.
Mr Obama, making up for his liberal bias, is treading closer to the political centre. Mr McCain, no blue-eyed boy of the party rank-and-file, is appearing more conservative to rally the base.
Some recent examples of issues that the candidates have flip-flopped on:
BARACK OBAMA
He promised to pull out troops from Iraq within 16 months of stepping into the White House. Now, he says he will refine his policy in response to the ground situation. He threatened to opt out of the Nafta trade deal, but now admits his anti-trade rhetoric was 'overheated and amplified'. He said he would accept public financing for his campaign if his rival did so. But after Mr McCain went ahead, the cash-rich Democrat opted to go on with private donations. He refused to wear the flag pin on his lapel at the start of his campaign, saying the practice amounted to phony patriotism. Now, he regularly sports one. JOHN MCCAIN
From being a vocal opponent of Bush detention policy at Guantanamo Bay, he morphed into a supporter, criticising a court ruling that detainees should have access to US courts. Unusually for a Republican, he has a fairly green agenda, but he has dropped his previous objection to offshore drilling, which environmentalists oppose as being bad for marine life. He backed immigration reform, which held out citizenship for illegal immigrants. But to appeal to the party base, he now says his focus is border security, not citizenship. He called Christian Coalition founder Jerry Falwell and his followers 'agents of intolerance' in 2000. But in 2006, he delivered the commencement address at Mr Falwell's Liberty University in a tilt towards the religious right. BHAGYASHREE GAREKAR