Would you fire someone if they had an affair?

Job performance has very little, or nothing to do with your marital status, dating history, affairs or even bad credit history. So why should we kick someone out of office when they’ve got the same kind of problems many people do?

When you refuse to vote for someone because of their personal infidelities, are you caring way too much about something that has nothing to do with their job performance?

We need to stop caring about our elected leaders’ infidelities, arrest records, etc. We never would’ve gotten Bill Clinton if we had cared – and we lost Eliot Spitzer and John Edwards because we did. If my boss or co-worker had an affair or even bad credit, I wouldn’t care. They’re there to do a job, and that’s all that matters.

Republicans don’t resign because of it – and that’s the ONLY thing I can respect them for. I respect the fact that they march in lock-step with each other. And that’s exactly what Dems need to do, too.

But we keep wondering why they become weak, spineless, albeit good hearted politicians – who lose their morals and vote with Republicans instead.

And, my strong suspicion is, the Republicans might have some dirt on the Dems. Republicans are very big on spying on people. Nixon made it their game. And now, we’ve got Democrats who will fold like a wet suit because they’ve been told that it’s “important” to have a clean marriage and personal life. They know they’re no better than Republicans, with love children and mistresses in the closet. But now they have to care about it. In fact, they know that they’ve got to be AFRAID because of it.

The Dems saw a public that cared about John Edwards and Eliot Spitzer and realized that they’re probably out of a job if their secret love child or whatever is made public. We lost two incredibly progressive, powerful people lose their status because of problems with their personal lives. Eliot Spitzer was cracking down on Wall Street – but instead of being given any credit for that, he was taken down and destroyed, because we Dems decided that hookers are way more of an “issue” than how well you are doing your job.

We treat affairs and personal matters as if they were corrupt politicians. We shouldn’t care about their bedrooms – We should care about their voting records and their politics.

Think about how hard it would be to get hired to do a job if bossess started caring about our personal lives. We need to rise above all of this – we need to show more tolerance and be less judgmental. Wouldn’t we all make better elected representatives if such things didn’t matter so much?

Democratic officials are in the business of governing – of voting in ways that will best take care of their constituents – pushing through jobs bills, and bringing home the pork that will make our districts a better place to live.

We need to make a pledge to our elected Democratic public officials — that we will only care about their voting record and not about not about their personal lives. These guys aren’t priests – they’re lawmakers.

Just think about how much the world of golf would’ve lost if they cared about Tiger Wood’s affairs. Think about how much better off we’d all be if we stopped caring about our representatives personal lives, too.

I know it’s a very hard thing to convince anyone of – but just put your mindset back to the time Bush Senior was in office and Bill Clinton was running for president. Remember the daily news reports about Jennifer Flowers? Remember the way we all just sort of rolled our eyes and said that it didn’t matter? I know that’s what I did. And when Clinton got caught in the Monica Lewinsky matter, I remember how much I didn’t care then, either. No one cared – Because he was doing a VERY good job. That’s exactly why Clinton’s approval numbers stayed strong throughout his impeachment trial.

And do we need to be reminded that it wasn’t an impeachment for something illegal? It was an impeachment over lying over a blow job. An impeachment trial for something that was incredibly personal and embarrassing. For something most people would’ve lied about, too. And it’s something that isn’t even illegal.

Republicans have a completely different attitude about such scandals. When it’s someone on their side of the aisle who’s guilty of such matters, they don’t give a rat’s a.s.s. about it. But if it’s a Democrat, we all care way too much – and demand the Republicans fire someone over it. As if that’s gonna happen.

We need to look past all of it.

We need to stop holding their personal lives against them.

One personal example…

My grandfather ran for mayor. He started the first Red Cross in his town. He was a union leader of his district. He was incredibly brave and incredibly passionate about what he did. He changed his community’s lives for the better. He was a very powerful man. And he got things done.

But as far as being a family man… maybe…maybe not so much.

This is going to sound awful, but I actually don’t know much about that part – and I almost don’t really care, actually, when I think about what he has accomplished. On a deeply personal level, I do care – but I don’t know very much about that part, and so I want to look past it. And maybe that’s the same reaon no one else in my family has ever discussed much about it, either. Maybe someday someone will finally give me all the icky details. But for now, I’m simply gonna accept the fact that he was a good politician…and that maybe I’ve got a little bit of that passion, too, from him.

So, again, I think we need to support our elected officials and ask the media to keep their personal matters out of the news cycle – and keep their professional lives as politicians public. Save that icky stuff for the celebrities and sports figures, huh? (and it’s a good thing we don’t care about it when we watch their movies or games!)

We would’ve had a much better future with Dennis Kucinich or Howard Dean. But because we let ourselves care too much about what Republicans and comedians will say about our choices, we end up caring way too much about the wrong people.

We finally put an extremely qualified candidate into the White House. And while he’s not perfect, I still feel strongly that he will do a great job.

The problem is, I wish we had all cared more about getting a truly leftwing progressive into the White House instead of someone who is waaaay to willing to play nice with corrupt, uncaring politicians.