Senator Kerry’s political views are like the weather in New England. If you don’t like it, just wait a minute, and it’ll change.

There was his vote on the $87 billion in funding for postwar Iraq. First he said it would be “reckless” and “irresponsible” to vote against it. Then he voted against it. Then he explained himself by saying, “I actually did vote for the $87 billion before I voted against it.”

There was his position on naming judges and their views on abortion. First he said during the primaries that he’d only appoint pro-choice justices. Then he told the Associated Press that he had voted to confirm Justice Scalia and said he would be open to nominating other judges who oppose abortion rights. Then he issued a clarifying statement that he’d only appoint to the Supreme Court those who favor abortion rights.

There was his view on the wisdom of naming President Carter or James Baker III as Middle East envoys. First he said that he’d consider it; then he told Jewish leaders that he wouldn’t, blaming it on an error by his speechwriters.

There was race-based affirmative action. In 1992, he said it has “kept America thinking in racial terms” and helped promote a “culture of dependency.” Now he’s for it.

The latest Kerry flip-flop is on public education. A Kerry press release from May 6, available on the campaign Web site, says the senator “will establish new systems that reward teachers for excellence in the classroom, including pay based on improvement in student achievement.” But Mike Antonucci of the invaluable Education Intelligence Agency, of Elk Grove, Calif., reports on a confidential memo from the president of the National Education Association, the huge teachers union. The May 21 memo reports on a meeting between Mr. Kerry and the union leaders. It says, according to Mr. Antonucci, “We raised our concerns that the Kerry campaign used the language ‘pay-for-performance’ in his press release, although the Senator himself did not use those words in his remarks and the formal policy document did not use it. The Senator clarified that the campaign did not intend to use that language and would not do so in the future. He asked that I convey this point to NEA leaders.”

Sure sounds like a flip-flop to us. We checked with Kerry spokesman Mark Kornblau yesterday and he told us, “John Kerry believes strongly that teachers should be rewarded for performance, and that that’s in the best interest of students.”There may be some subtle differences between rewarding teachers for performance and paying them based on performance. It’d be an interesting point for President Bush or any other determined questioner to press Mr. Kerry on in the months ahead. As the great Antonucci put it, “Whether or not Kerry uses the words ‘pay for performance’ in the future is irrelevant to the central question: Will those reforms survive the resistance of education’s most powerful special interest group?”