The legitimacy of those who attacked Bill Clinton for the Monica Lewinsky issue in the 1990’s has dropped like flies with an increasing string of goody two shoed Republicans who would not even seem bad ass enough to double dip a chip at their seven year old son’s birthday party being caught having affairs. The most recent case is South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford. If you are not familiar with this story, he basically disappeared for a few days without telling his staff or his family and later had to fess up to an affair he was having in Argentina. This was a guy I had been following as a political geek in general because it seemed as though he had a bright future ahead of him as a conservative anti-stimulus Republican (which we later found he got more than enough of his share of stimulus in South America). Yet, he is another Republican that while setting high prudent moral standards in public speeches to attract votes has completely contradicted those standards. Most often the issue that Republicans get up in arms about is “traditional marriage,” something they will defend to the grave but seemingly cannot even master themselves.

Last night as I was at my cousin’s place in DC moving furniture that she was giving to me before she moves to the west coast, I noticed her calling out to next door neighbors, that presumably were a gay couple, about them helping her move the rest of the furniture later. These two men looked very happy, stable, and loving. Granted, I am making a superficial judgment on seeing these two men on their nicely decorated porch for no more than three minutes having a small talk conversation with my cousin, but the point is in this day and age many of us know happy and stable gay or lesbian couples and yet there is a political party that fights to the death to not have these people enjoy the same rights as heterosexual couples despite not being able to master their own ever so sacred marriage vows. These social conservatives deny gay and lesbian Americans a plethora of basic rights on the basis of upholding something so sacred that many among them cannot even live up to.

It just does not make much sense to me. If you are going to have a political party that at times seems to call for a borderline theocratic emphasis on conservative moral values, why not at the very least uphold those values in your own personal life instead of having e-mail affairs with women from Argentina that are reminiscent of and as corny as the paperback romance novels to the right of the magazine rack at the super market? While I understand the argument that many moral conservative politicians go into politics with very sincere beliefs thinking they can uphold their nearly unrealistic stringent moral standards but get “corrupted by power”, why not be a little more candid with the people who voted for you after the fall from grace? Obviously telling the voters “HEY I CHEAT ON MY WIFE” is maybe not the best way, but okay, why not at least distance yourself from the constant reiterating of preachy social value politics?

Why did Bill Clinton survive marriage infidelity or some other kind of sexual taboo scandal while Mark Foley, Larry Craig, Elliot Spitzer, and John Edwards did not? Because voters already knew what they were getting with Clinton. All of his dirty laundry with affairs was out on the table from his years as the Governor of Arkansas. So if you’re going to send naughty text messages to congressional pages, or have gay hook ups in an airport bathroom, hook up with prostitutes, or hire a mistress to be your campaign “film director,” just remember not to be preachy about family values. Because if there’s one thing voters dislike more than politicians not upholding a certain moral high ground, it is hypocrisy which is why the socially conservative Republican message is sinking more and more by the day with today’s voting populous. Just be real.

For more, watch the Mark Sanford Press Conference (FASCINATING!):

Part 1:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bn9Yb9VzXrE&feature=channel_page

Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1tbr-bHX4M&feature=channel_page

Jaren Love also writes for www.dailyhorserace.com and can be reached at jelove@umd.edu.

Tags: Mark Sanford, moral purity, political sex scandals, Republican Party

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 1st, 2009 at 10:39 am and is filed under Beltway Banter. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.