Governor Sanford and Senator Ensign are the most recent Republicans to confess to extramarital affairs. John Edwards and Elliot Spitzer were the most recent Democrats.
In many countries, these stories are politically irrelevant. In America, Republicans have intentionally elevated their relevance. After Bill Clinton’s impeachment proceedings, Republicans campaigned on character, religious and cultural issues. They cloaked themselves in moral rectitude, galvanized the religious base and won several election cycles.It was merely a matter of time before Republican hypocrisy would undermine such an exacting message of moral superiority. Hypocrisy extends to both parties and beyond moral crusades. Al Gore’s multiple homes, SUVs and globetrotting carbon footprint undermined some of the purity of his environmental preaching.
The recent Republican examples of hypocrisy should mark the beginning decline of political campaigns based on family values. Character is a prerequisite for elected office. It is not a legitimate organizing political principle. Speeches about personal responsibility offer hollow answers to vexing public policy problems.
For example, more responsible parents and students will improve individual educational achievement, but even people of the highest character cannot overcome a decentralized, dysfunctional educational system that delivers unequal and poor quality education. More responsible borrowers would have limited, but not averted a financial crisis in a system characterized by too much leverage and greed, perverse incentives to take risk, and inadequate regulation.
But the real problem with the American Right’s obsession with moral purity is not the embarrassing exposure of hypocrisy that inevitably occurs when Larry Craig gets caught with his pants down, when Mark Foley flirts with adolescent boys, or when Newt Gingrinch admits the failure of yet another of his “traditional” marriages. The real problem is that the family values crusade crowds out the people and ideas on the Right that can serve this country’s interests. I look forward to elections when Republicans focus on balanced budgets, tax reform, entitlement reform, school choice, and market-oriented compensation for teachers. I look forward to a Republican party that competes on the basis of its ideas and not the promotion of its piety.
- SF
