My Candidate Must Be of Good Character

I have to say that at this point, I'm absolutely thrilled that Barack Obama is my presidential candidate. I am not so naive to expect that a candidate, man or woman, be as pure as the driven snow, but what is happening before our eyes with John Edwards is not just sad, it is just pathetic. When it comes to fidelity in marriage, I want my candidate to be faithful. It just says something about what he or she is made of, how important is h is/her commitment and whether he's able to look the public in the eye and tell the truth without knowing that that's a lie.

John McCain is also one of these tragic figures who has been less than a stellar husband. In his case, he also cheated on his wife who was in ill health, but unlike Edwards, he ultimately left his former wife for his current wife, beer heiress Cindy Hensley. Many people are not privy to the details of McCain's indiscretion, but I think it's relevant and important to know.

http://www.voiceofarizona.com/McCains_broken_marriage_and_fra-5031-2-33278.htm

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-divorce11-2008jul11,0,6546861.story?page=2

Former President Clinton has a sordid past that he has not really been able to overcome. Other previous presidents or presidential candidates have been able to keep their extramarital affairs under wraps for two main reasons: The mainstream simply looked the other way, and we didn't live in a 24/7 news era where newsrooms had to dig deep for stories and will now report on anything and everything.

Of course the only person who seems to get away with having relationships outside of marriage is our current president, W. To this day, we have no clue what Jeff Gannon, the fake journalist/male escort for men, was doing in the West Wing of the White House dozens of times at all times of the day or night. We also know that rumors of Bush's relationship with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice are legendary, but the only one that's really talking is Laura Bush, whose body language and eyes tell the very dark story of a woman who lost any spark that existed in that marriage a long time ago.

I would rather have my presidential family happy, together, living in a world based on trust, fidelity and honesty. This translates to how the president looks at the American people, and conversely, this affects how the American people view their president. A politician who has such a huge secret that he's working hard at hiding or dodging will ultimately spend more time working at keeping that secret than they will working for you and me.

I realize that 50% of men and women in this country are not faithful to their spouse or significant other, but these are people who make life and death decisions that have such a profound effect on all of us.