How important are the personal lives of political candidates to you, when it comes to them getting your vote or not?

It seems such an American thing to even know about politician’s personal lives.

Unless they’re doing/have done something illegal, it’s none of our business. Absolutely none of our business.

I could care less. It’s their behavior in the public sphere that grabs my attention, and by that I don’t mean salacious bullshit dug up and splattered across my flat screen by a lazy press pandering to morons.

Zero.

It isn’t the circumstances of their personal lives, such as Bill and Hillary having a difficult marriage.

It is the hypocrisy of people who spout “values” as necessary to fight “moral decay” while standing next to their third or fourth wife, or after having spent a night having dates on Grindr.

I don’t care unless they have made a point of condemning similar activity by others. If they make it political, it’s political. Otherwise, it’s no one’s business.

@zenvelo You beat me to it by a hair!

Their personal lives aren’t of interest to me. That shit is for Hollywood types.

The problem in Presidential politics is that the people will vote based on likability. They want to like the person they’re voting for. Ethics are important, Character is important, and when you’re living in the White House (the peoples house), what you do there is important.When Hillary kept China and furniture from the White House, is that personal or public business? Does it go to ethics or character? When Bill got a blowjob in the Oval Office, is that personal or public? It’s not always an easy call but whether you like the person or not quite often skews the outcome.

Everyone wants to believe that their decisions are completely logical and unbiased but seldom are. Look at the beating Sarah Palin took over her personal life and the lives of her children. Nothing logical or unbiased there. Liability has a big impact on Presidential politics and personal strengths and failing play a big prt in that.

@Jaxk Palin takes a beating based on the. Absolute hypocrisy of her moralizing. She and her family spout family values and “Christian” behavior, absolute abstinence, while publicly having children out of wedlock, getting in drunken brawls in public, and defending domestic violence

I only care when they’re moralizing cunts who condemn others while on marriage number 3 and still banging their secretary or tapping their foot under men’s restroom stalls.

Since Republicans are expected to have values, their personal lives are fair game and Democrats are not expected to have values so their personal lives are out of bounds. Do you guys actually believe that?

@jca Nobody cared that Reagan was divorced. No one cared about Nancy Reagan’s Milton use until she came out with “Just say no”.

No one really cares that Newt has been married three times; it is his habit of affairs while impeaching the President for a liaison. No one really cares about Trump being on his third wife, it is them preaching the sanctity of marriage even though he started dating Melania two years before his divorce.

It isn’t that Republicans are expected to have values; it is that they viciously apply those values on everyone else except themselves.

It is the hypocrisy that they continually spout.

@Jaxk

Too bad no one said anything remotely close to that.

@zenvelo: Did you mean to direct your comment to @Jaxk and not @jca?

@zenvelo

Exactly. I don’t care that Newt Gingrich has been married and divorced multiple times. I do care that he gave his first wife divorce papers while she was in the hospital sick with cancer, so that he could marry his mistress. I care that he divorced his second wife so that he could marry another mistress. I care that he did all this while he preached about family values, the sanctity of marriage, etc, and leading the charge against Bill Clinton for getting a blowjob.

Zero. I don’t care if they go golfing, I don’t care if they are into S&M, I don’t care if they lounge around naked by their pools, I don’t care if they have an affair, or smoked weed in college, or smoke it now. I do think that it is foolish to think you can hide some big, scandalous thing, but anybodies personal life is not my business and while I do expect they take their jobs seriously and show some integrity, their personal lives are, simply, not my business or anyone elses.

It depends on what they are preaching to the public about like nothing is more important than the family then find out they boink anything willing.
Or scream how bad drug use is ,only to find out they themselves are are hard users.
Basically don’t preach to the public on how they should live their lives , and not leading by example.

@zenvelo – Nobody cares how many times someone was married. The only people I hear complaining about that is Democrats. When Clinton got his blowjob it wasn’t that he had an affair, it was where and with whom he did it. If I had ever done anything like that I would have been fired immediately and it wouldn’t matter if the firing manager was having an affair or not. In addition the allegations of rape are troubling as well. There much more to what Clinton did than merely having an affair despite your attempts to minimize it.

My wife’s parents stayed married for 40 years until her father died. I admire that even though I’ve been married three time. Does that make me a hypocrite? I don’t think so but maybe you do. I got into drugs in my youth but I cautioned my son not to do it. Does that make me a hypocrite? Once again, I don’t think so. I continue to push my son to quit smoking even though I smoke. Does that make me a hypocrite? There are many traits I admire that I don’t necessarily possess. I would like to see a president that is a good role model instead of someone that stays just beyond the reach of the law. I would like a President that is a better person than I am. If that’s hypocritical, I plead guilty.

@Jaxk: What about Palin and her Christian values but her own family issues (kids, DV)? Is that a family you feel would represent the country well?

It matters to me if they smoke crack or Meth. Does Tom Ford ring a bell?

@jca – As I said, a divorce doesn’t bother me even though it’s not a trait I would consider a positive trait. Families including kids, siblings, or parents are not the issue. They can reflect positively or negatively on the politician but few politicians or anyone else have completely exemplar families, Leave the kids alone.

@Jaxk

Are you preaching on about family values? Are you condemning others for getting divorced? Are you condemning others for drug use? Are you calling for prison time when it comes to the drug use of others, but when it comes to the drug use of your own, or someone you like, calling for “thoughts and prayers”? Do you urge your son to quit smoking, or do you punish him for smoking while standing there with a cigarette hanging out of your own mouth?

@jonsblond True, extreme drug abuse would certainly cause low performance and faulty decision making, but…I am sure there are a ton of major alcoholics in office too. The Meth and crack will just kill your brain cells more quickly.

There are also a bunch of Republican gay politicians who are in the closet and yet vote for legislature that is not progressive for gay people and gay rights. More hypocrisy.

@Jaxk You completely missed my point. I don’t care how many times they’ve been married. And neither do Democrats. What people cannot abide is multiple marriages while preaching about the sanctity of marriage.

And, you have been vocally opposed to the best father figure in the oval office in memory.

I’m not going to try and disassemble all these straw men your putting up. The only people I hear being criticized for multiple marriages are Republicans and the criticism comes from Democrats. I have a set of values I live by. Maybe I’m not always able to live up to them but I try. If I criticize anyone for their values it does not rely on whether they are Democrat or Republican.

@jonsblond – I don’t know who Tom Ford is.

@jca – Just because someone is gay, does that really mean they must vote with you in order to not be hypocritical? Surely you can’t mean that.

@zenvelo – I’m opposed to his policies. He can’t be a good enough father to make me overlook his disastrous term in office.

@Jaxk; Being gay and yet voting for gays not to have rights and to be punished for sex with same genders, etc. does not strike you as a problem?

@jca – Yet another strawman. Who is advocating punishment for having sex with the same gender? The only issue I’m aware of is same sex marriage. That’s a different animal.

Well, it depends on exactly what that private life consists of. If you’re referring to common missteps, like Bill doing what he did, well, no. That has nothing to do with whether or not he was a good president. And I most certainly agree that his behavior is not a reflection on his wife’s ability to be a good president.
If the private life includes some serious aberration, such as child porn or something, then hell no. They aren’t getting my vote.

@Jaxk “I’m not going to try and disassemble all these straw men your putting up. The only people I hear being criticized for multiple marriages are Republicans and the criticism comes from Democrats.”

The only straw men being put up in this thread are from you. You’re criticizing others for doing the exact thing you’re doing. Ironic, given the context of the thread.

@Jaxk Palin took that beating after making the decision to monetize her celebrity, and I doubt VERY much if ANYONE on my side of the spectrum gives a hoot on the moral turpitude of the dysfunctional Palin family. That is until she has the cheek to comment on the morality of others! And I for one do not believe that it is the left making righteous claims on the moral high ground. You don’t find liberals railing in Congress on the moral depravity of homosexuals then rushing off to airport restrooms to proposition boys.

Oops, I meant Rob Ford

I only care if they are hypocrites or abusive. Don’t talk about family values and then be cheating. Don’t vote against gay rights and be a closet homosexual.

I don’t care if the candidate is single, married, gay, straight, divorced, single parent, as long as they seem to be responsible.

@Jaxk The Texas GOP has actively proposed jailing LGBTQ people.

I believe one’s private life can tell us MUCH about his or her fitness for public service.

Trump’s refusal to publicly share his tax returns, for example, tells me much about his personal ethics.

@Jaxk You’re not a hypocrite, because you are not passing judgement about marriage and divorce and you are saying what people should do.

Regarding Bill Clinton, I don’t defend his affair and obvious inability to control himself over the years, but that he did it at his office in the White House? He lives there. He can’t travel easily, and these days you ant trust the entourage or reporters to keep it quiet like back in the old days. If he was going to be a horrible husband he didn’t have much choice about where to do it. Again, it’s not an excuse, but I don’t compare the White House to an office at IBM.

@Pachy So, you put affairs in the same category as tax returns?

I wonder how many presidents have gotten blowjobs in the White House that we’ll never hear about.

@Darth_Algar: I’m betting the majority.

All except George Washington maybe. He’s the one president we can safely say didn’t.

George just got his blowjob crossing the Delaware by someone else with Hippopotamus tooth dentures. Those revolutionary capes all the men wore were quite perfect for concealing blowjobs. lol

Well he had to get them somewhere. The White House wasn’t built during his term.

Oh pleeeze, @JLeslie, of course not. You zeroed in on the one tiny example I gave and apparently missed my first-sentence point.

@pachy No, I just wasn’t sure. But, upon rereading your full statement I guess you are saying men who cheat can’t be trusted to do well at his job. That means as a society we are really screwed. Pun intended.

Imagine if all men who cheat were fired. That would be a lot of families in financial chaos. I say family on purpose. A lot of daddy’s with little kids losing their jobs.