Marital Fidelity and the GOP Nomination

I once lived in a city where the mayor was forced out of office for looking at pornography...for 3 hours.  There is no doubt that many Americans expect their political leaders to live up to a certain standard.  But to others, it does not matter.  The question of adultery has reared it's ugly head in the race for the 2012 nomination.

I do not know if the allegations of sexual harassment and adultery against Herman Cain are true.  But they have been enough of a distraction to his campaign to call his personal character into question.  The allegations may be false, but they way that these questions have been handled by the Cain campaign are what calls his ability to lead into question.  Compare what Cain has done to some of his competitors.

Newt, for example, has admitted to marital infidelity.  He is on his third marriage.  But claims that this has not been a problem over the last decade.  For that matter, to date, there has been no one come forward to state that this has been a problem since Newt left the House of Representatives and married his current wife.  The problem that really dogs Newt was his role in the impeachment scandal of President Bill Clinton.  While Newt was cheer-leading the Republican effort to remove Clinton from office, he, himself was carrying on with a woman who was not at that time his wife.  She is now, but when Newt was House Speaker, he was married to another woman.  It seems that enough GOP voters are willing enough to forgive Newt for this hypocrisy to give him front-runner status.

At least on four occasions before Newt announced his candidacy for the White House, Newt addressed this admitted indiscretion.  He has been consistent in his insistence that he is a changed man.  No one has offered any evidence to the contrary.

Even so, does America care what happens in the Lincoln bedroom?  There were plenty of women who came forward in 1992, before Bill Clinton was elected to the White House, to suspect that he was not the most faithful husband, and he was elected anyway.  Remember the first Saturday Night Live skit after Clinton was elected?  "There are going to be plenty of things we won't be telling Mrs. Clinton."

The trouble with Republicans is that they claim the moral high ground.  They claim to be the party of family values.  And when you claim the moral high ground, you had better be worthy of that claim.  That is why Gary Johnson has not been able to gain any traction in his campaign.

Johnson is living proof that the Tea Party method works.  When he was governor of New Mexico he lowered taxes and balanced the state budget.  He moved people off of the welfare dole.  The economy in his state grew as a result and has been performing as well, if not better, than it's neighbors in the years since.  According to one report, "Johnson left the state fiscally solid, and was arguably the most popular governor of the decade . . . leaving the state with a $1 billion budget surplus."

Why hasn't Johnson been leading the pack in his quest to become the next President? Gary Johnson has been engaged to his woman since 2009 and they have yet to tie the knot over two years later.  He is also a social liberal, not a social conservative. Not someone who the religious right wing can get behind.

Is there evidence that the Republican Party can get beyond looking at the sex lives of their perspective leaders.  Yes, and that evidence is John McCain who was unfaithful to his first wife.  By the time he ran for president, it was well behind him.

In conclusion, Newt Gingrich and Herman Cain have enough problems without allegations and admitted failings.  Yes, Republican primary voters may looks past these as simple smear tactics by the left, but the Obama campaign will not.  If either Cain or Gingrich gets the nomination, the Lewinsky scandal will be played out over and over again.  There are reason why the Obama campaign prefers to run against Newt, and those reasons are as plain as the nose on his face.