Personal? Political? The line is blurred

If the 1960s brought us the idea that the personal is political, 2011 may well go down as the year when the political became truly personal.

A year when a presidential candidate responds to allegations of sexual harassment and infidelity by launching a Web page so supporters can call his accusers out as husbandless, evil conspirators. When a Kansas governor's staffer can take such offense at a high school student's Tweet about his boss that he tries to get her in trouble at school.

Surely, politicians (even businessmen-turned-politicians) haven't become such thin-skinned, delicate specimens. You don't get to be governor or a big-time pizza kingpin without cracking a few pepperoni - and handling the fallout. It's nothing personal.

Of course, voters have long blurred the distinction between political and personal - taken for granted that a politician's private conduct is as important as lines on a resume.

But if politicians blur back - treat public criticisms and charges as personal attacks - who has their eye on the ball?

We media are no help. We diligently follow the story. We give the same attention to the Tweet, the complaint, the non-apology and denouement - a governor reduced to apologizing to the girl who dissed him - as we do the workings of office.

I guess you can argue some of the muck that's dredged up speaks to a public servant's character - or its lack - that Americans deserve to know.

But when we spend all our time talking about handsy Herman Cain, or Newt Gingrich's unlikability or Rick Perry's gaffes, we lose sight of the whole reason for voting in the first place: The belief in “a good we can speak to in common, that we cannot know alone,” as Jean Bethke Elshtain, professor of Social and Political Ethics at the University of Chicago, put it last month at the University of Iowa Public Policy Center symposium on civility in political discourse.

Forget common good, this is everyone for themselves.

The free-for-all drives away good people who want nothing to do with the playground taunts that have replaced our civic debate.

“You almost have to be a hero of sorts to fight past it,” Elshtain said.

Or, more likely, be willing to go as low as it takes - which, these days, means dragging voters, not just opponents, down with them.

Cain is expected to make an announcement today to “clarify” next steps for his campaign.

But with all the mud that's been flying - in every direction - he's not the only one who could benefit from clarity.

Comments: (319) 339-3154; jen

nifer.hemmingsen@sourcemedia.net