D.D. 06/15/06

When you consider running for public office, you definitely open yourself up for public criticism. That criticism includes a examination of everything you ever said or did that's in the public pervue. Not that that is a good thing - but that's the way it goes. By running for office, you can bet that you'll be criticized for everything you ever did wrong - and ever sin that makes you human. The opposition's role in researching past discretions of other candidates is a moral gray area - what they find out may never be used. But, in a perfect world, all oppo-reasearchers would be unemployed.

What is a different plane all together is attaching a candidate's family to this blanket research. Mike Kopp argues here that since campaigns these days are so rehearsed - the candidate's family becomes fair game. That response couldn't be more disgusting in my opinion. For one thing, a candidate's wife/son/daughter could have nothing to do with that candidate's ultimate decision to run for office. And that's why there is a moral difference here - a huge moral difference. What the moral assumption is otherwise is that just because you take a family photo and put it on your campaign website, the people in that photo become open to attack.

Lots of people show up on a candidate's website, but unless they are politicans too - who have voluntarily placed themselves in the public light, they shouldn't be open for attack either. Republicans and Democrats involved in politics in this state are guilty of this (I can think of the current case in which the Democrats did it wrong and a case several months ago when Republicans did it wrong against Harold Ford, Jr.). That's the point -- if you don't choose to be put in the public light - and that could include not having a say in whether or not your mommy or daddy are running for public office - then you should be afforded some basic rights to privacy.