Politics with Marc Ambinder

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Jun 24 2009, 3:59 pm by Marc Ambinder

Will Sanford's Admissions Change Politics?

I'll have more to say about this later, but I think the answer is yes: Once again, Americans have another reason to throw their hands up and say, "There's another politician who couldn't keep it in his pants, and who abused the public trust."  Confidence in political institutions is as low as it was after Watergate, and the less confidence the public has in politicians, the less competitive elections will be; fewer good people decide to run for office, and the cycle perpetuates.  I'm not so sure the ultimate meaning of the revelation has anything to do with moral hypocrisy; the archetype of conservative moral scolds is no longer salient outside GOP primary politics. Imagine if Rudy Giuliani had run in this environment.... 

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Comments (6)

satrap

If we could only have a faithful politician who wasn't constantly preaching family values, boring biblical passages, and actually walking the walk, it would be great.


Oh, we do? The President? Sorry, never mind.

bobierto

Gotta disagree, Marc. It may be that only hyper "conservative" G-nO-P primary voters actually care about the conduct. But many more of us care about hyper conservative moralists damning us to hell and then sneaking about engaging in the kind of behavior they claim to abhor. And vote accordingly.

Abhinav (Replying to: bobierto)

Not to mention Republicans constantly harping on Defense of Marriage laws, sanctity of marriage as between one man and one woman, fear mongering of gay marriage etc...

colby

"Imagine if Rudy Giuliani had run in this environment.... "

Err, he'd have still lost. It wasn't his affair that cost him the nomination, it was his awful campaign and spotty record. Indeed, his affair was known before he even got in the race- and thus, before those long months of him being up double-digits on the rest of the field.

UncommonSense (Replying to: colby)

It was Rudy(!)'s awful campaign... and the fact that he was by all appearances completely deranged.

He would have stood no better chance of becoming president in the post-Sanford era than before. Crazy is crazy. Ironically, this is apparently the hurdle that Sanford would have had to clear, even if his cross-hemisphere affair had not come to light.

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