Keep the Family Out of It

When did the inane become a bigger issue than character or ability? Now I'm not as crazy to think that dirty campaigning is a new thing, I'm sure the Greek polis was filled with dirty politics, hell, why else would Diogenes being looking for an honest man. And I realize throughout American presidential campaigns, you were either born in a log cabin or the progeny of an illicit slave behind the woodpile relationship, an Irishman, a Catholic, a Slav or a Jew.

I suppose much of the dirtiness of the coverage of politics is due to the ease of covering gossip and people's schadenfreude or perhaps my favorite line of Clerks, I hope it feels so good to be right. There's nothing more exhilarating than pointing out the shortcomings of others, is there? And the ease of the new media in covering it, in what Halperin call "the freak show". Anything on the DrudgeReport or DailyKos or through other right and left wing blogs can frequently take on a life of it's own, become part of the talk radio airwaves as fact and somehow filter down through my wife's relatives as the honest to God truth that Clinton is a rapist or less likely from them, GW is taking Air Force One to snort coke off the asses of 16 year old Moldovan prostitutes.

The right (as detailed well in Halperin's The Way to Win) plays this game a lot better than the left, who to me can't help but to get in the way of itself (a post for another day), watching the Democrats commit character assassination is like watching Greg Kite and Acie Earl in a three legged race or watching me and my friend Fred in a spelling bee. I don't think that it's because of a lack of moral turpitude of the right wing, especially when it is demonstrated so well by televangelists, but more the inability of Democratic politicians to have an understanding of this exploitation, not that I think that it's the right way to do things. Basically we lack the collective chutzpah to engage in character assassination and then have the huevos to deny it and accuse the otherside of trying to do the same thing. Which is a Republican masterpiece.

I guess the thing that's really been bothering me lately is when did family become such a political football? I mean the media is always going to look for their Billy Carter or Roger Clinton. You know the no-good, drunk, good old boy type, I mean not the crazy child molester or anything, just some guy the late night comics can recycle bad jokes about. For example the drunken antics of the Bush twins.

But lately there has been some real weirdness. Our own once venerated Boston Globe, which is trying to blend itself into tabloid culture as quickly as possible recently published information about Mitt Romney's family tree. (I believe it may have been AP but it was trumpeted front page in the Globe's attempt to sabotage the Romney 2008 campaign). In this article, apparently some of Mitt's ancestors took the pleasure of multiple wives. Honestly, I'm no huge Romney fan, but what is this supposed to mean? Will Williard be bring polygamy to the White House? Will the Lincoln bedroom become the Mrs. Romney II room? But this is the nature of modern politics.

The push polling in South Carolina in 2000 in the McCain v. Bush campaign may have led us to the worst president since Andrew Johnson, so it's not only that this kind of thing can be a total joke. It also probably indicates that it's not a bad idea to front load some of these primaries, so that a mild outbreak of kookiness and misinformation cannot metastasize as a complete triumph of idiocy like it did in 2000 and 2004.

Deval Patrick has become another smaller case of family involvement in politics. Now this isn't because of malfeasance but because of illness and frankly the luxury of wealth and being able to be treated for exhaustion, poor folks would just self medicate and move on and get sicker, but this is a much better way. Governor Patrick, who has had several small missteps out of the gate after coming in to office in a landslide, was faced with the fact that the first lady and the love of his life had become somewhat of a political football due to her illness. Now as Democrats who think we are smarter than everyone and have good policy ideas but can't campaign, cajole, or coerce ourselves out of a paper bag, of course came up with the worse possible answer after a slow start, "we'll be working a flexible schedule".

What kind of answer is that? Let me tell you how you gain ground when there is even the intimation that someone could talk about your wife. "This is my family, this is my business and I'd appreciate it, if you'd back the f#ck off". This is the right answer. This is the answer (in your own words, Governor) that would resonate with everyone in the Commonwealth that was starting to doubt you/already doubted you. Hell, the Herald cover would be a winner.

Suffice to say we will never have a candidate like FDR or Abe Lincoln walk through that door again. Too much media. A physical "cripple" and an emotional "cripple" with their finger on the button? Likely the philandering of JFK would have killed his campaign before he could buy off West Virginia. So we start to scrape bottom, Giuliani, Gingrich? Are you kidding me? Now the thinking is that you admit all your sins upfront, "honey, I know you have cancer but can you sign this paper?"

How do we get outside of mediocrity? So that youthful indiscretion/stupidity do not condemn a great leader from staying in business/nonprofits/non elected government instead of running for office. A leader that gets elected by ideas, his/her ability rather than his/her choice of recreation, prurient or otherwise. To think that this country was nearly paralyzed politically for two years by it's leader's adultery, which should be shameful to himself and to his family but not to the governing politic as a whole. Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.