Politicians & Fidelity

I've heard a lot of people asking what a politician's relational shenanigans have to do with his job. Whether you're right, left, or center, you should be concerned about it. Character is more vital to a politician's job than experience. Experience can be gained. We expect that people will learn over time. Character, for better or worse, is generally formed at an early age. It seldom changes in adulthood.

If a man can't keep the promise he made to be faithful to his wife, a woman he loved at the time he made it, how can he be trusted to keep the promise he makes to the Constitution, an inanimate object for which his degree of emotional attachment is unknowable?

There's a reason the Marines motto is Semper Fidelis, Latin for Always Faithful. Fidelity, faithfulness to the Constitution and people it represents, is a fundamentally essential characteristic of someone whose job is to defend those things. Since our President is the Commander in Chief of our Armed Forces, his fidelity should be a bulwark, an uncompromising rock in which the people of America can trust. Our congressmen, likewise. No matter the specific makeup of their constituency, their fidelity to the Constitution, and what is best for the people of America, should be something we can be certain of.

It concerns me less where a politician stands on any issue, than the character he shows in his personal and professional relationships. A man, or woman, of character can be trusted to look at all sides of an issue, at all the available information, and change their position if needed, because the right thing is more important than the expedient thing. If he would risk his marriage for an opportunistic lay, what would he sell a vote for; a boat, a private jet, a campaign contribution, another lay?

Sadly, I see few politicians of any party in whose fidelity I feel confident. Perhaps that's why Americans are so unhappy with all of our leaders. We vote strategically over issues, rather than seeking out leaders whose character is good for whom positions on the issues are not yet fixed. Leaders who can approach investigation and debate on an issue with a mind open to the possibility that public opinion is not necessarily right. It's not their job to vote the way they think we want, because we don't make it our full time job to know everything about every issue. It's their job to get the information we don't have, make the right decision, then explain it to us.

Race, gender, even sexual orientation really mean nothing to me in the polling place, but promiscuity, infidelity and divorce are immediate disqualifiers. I hope you will consider how we could change our nation if we all changed this one factor of our voting priorities.