When you enter the public life as a candidate for an elected office, you are asking the voting public to look you up one side and down the other. The public wants to know if you are honest, hard working, truthful and sincere. They want to know if you can handle the pressure of the job. How you treat your family and friends. What are your core values? What are you past mistakes? In addition, how you overcame difficult times in your life.
Once or twice is not a pattern but when you get past ten times I think you can honestly call that a pattern. Prove you can overcome bad behaviors but do not try to minimize them as not important to the voters. Be honest with yourself as well as the public. The voters are far more likely to respect and forgive the truth than to hear a candidate dismiss their bad behavior as not important.
People often make mistakes when it comes to the individuals they fall in love with. It is very difficult to admit that someone they love might have done something wrong. No one wants to hear that a close personal relationship has to end if they want to hold a public office. It shows strength in character to be able to walk away from love in order to hold office.
The president of the United States had to give up his mister in order to be elected. It was not easy for him to admit that the man was saying things that were unacceptable to the voters. Yet, the president withdrew with love and kindness in his heart for the individual. The voting public wanted to know that he did not share the same views as that mister. The same can be said for any relationship held by a candidate who runs for public office.
People who run for public office are often judged for the behaviors of family and close friends. The voting public is very good at judging the sincerity of candidates. You can tell when a candidate is just telling you what you want to hear as opposed to the truth. Lies will often surface during a campaign.
The voting public has every right to know just who the people are that want to hold a public office.
They also have every right to know the relationship and the leandings of reporters and bloggers. I would like to think that I am very bad at keeping secret my own personal views and leandings. Their are a very few elected officials that I simply will not write about because of the fact that I have private personal relationships with them. Even bloggers have private lives.