Politics & Power Quote by Mo Udall

Mo Udall’s line is a sly defense of what voters love to call “flip-flopping” and what governing often requires: adaptation. The punch is in the pairing of personal growth with raw institutional survival. He doesn’t romanticize the statesman who evolves out of pure conscience; he measures greatness by whether you can evolve and still keep your job. That’s not cynical so much as clear-eyed about the actual incentive structure of democracy, where a politician is simultaneously a decision-maker and a product in a perpetual election cycle.

The intent is double. On the surface, Udall is praising flexibility: facts change, coalitions shift, crises rewrite the agenda. A leader who can’t update their views becomes a hostage to yesterday’s talking points. Underneath, he’s also admitting that “changing one’s views” is rarely enough; you have to change the story around those views. The seat isn’t just office furniture, it’s legitimacy, access, and the power to translate beliefs into policy. Lose it, and your newly enlightened position becomes a column, not a vote.

Context matters: Udall was a long-serving Arizona congressman known for humor and reformist instincts, operating in an era when party realignments and post-Watergate distrust made “authenticity” a weapon. His joke lands because it exposes a truth most political rhetoric hides: democracy rewards conviction and punishes stubbornness, but it punishes visible inconsistency even more. Greatness, in Udall’s definition, is the rare ability to thread that needle without pretending the needle doesn’t exist.