Reply #28: I can understand why you'd be sensitive to personal issues [View All]

being judged in local politics--on a local level, everyone simply knows too much about everyone else (I live in a small town, one of the drawbacks)--however, I do think personal issues ARE a legitimate factor in national politics, because the themes are writ large. Most county commissioners and mayors aren't running on "family values" and cultural wedge issues, they're running on nuts-and-bolts competence, or perhaps ethics. Presidential politics is the process of the United States deciding what sort of face it wants to show to the world, who embodies our values. It's much more than a job, it's an image presented to the world. The Clintons still face opposition because of Bill's cheatin' ways--that's fair. Rudy Giuliani is being rejected in part because Republicans don't really want to see his skanky mistress as First Lady. And Mike Huckabee will never be President, because we don't want the world to think of Bibles and banjo music and possums fried for state dinners and the Jethro brothers molesting dogs when they think of us.