The Personal Lives of Candidates

The political world has been abuzz ever since John McCain announced on Thursday that his running mate would be Sarah Palin, 44 year old governor of Alaska. The pick seemed to be great to many because she is much more conservative than McCain which undoubtedly appeals to the staunch Republicans who were not enthusiastic about supporting him. Indeed, she seems to be everything he is not; young, conservative and in touch with the general public. Her husband is apparently a blue collar oil worker and she has 5 kids ranging in age from 18 to 4 months. Her infant son has Down's Syndrome. Yep . . . she should definitely be able to relate to middle class America, mothers and families with special needs children. Or at least I'm sure that's what the McCain campaign is counting on.

Today it was announced that Sarah Palin's 17 year old daughter Bristol is pregnant. I am active on a number of forums that have all been buzzing about this all day and there seem to be two themes emerging. One group seems to think that an unwed, pregnant teen daughter has no bearing on Palin's quality as a vice presidential candidate and that it's none of our business because it's completely irrelevant to the election. The other half believes that the fact that Palin's own daughter is pregnant out of wedlock undermines her advocacy of Christian values.

Barack Obama released a statement reacting to news of the pregnancy saying that, "I have said before and I will repeat again: People's families are off limits," he went on to say, "This shouldn't be part of our politics. It has no relevance to Gov. Palin's performance as governor, or her potential performance as a vice president."

What do you think? I see the altruistic value of leaving a child who is not, herself, running for public office, out of the national political spotlight. But I can't help my feelings that this situation does deal a blow to Sarah Palin's, and indeed, the entire Republican party's platform of family values. Let's start with abstinence only sex ed in schools. If the child of someone like Sarah Palin is having sex out of wedlock, why should anyone think that other teens are heeding the message of abstinence only? Yes, abstinence is the best choice and should be promoted to teens, but they need to know WHY abstinence is the best choice before we can realistically expect them to do it. They need to know what the real, perhaps negative and lifelong consequences of having sex are. They need to know that all methods of contraception have a failure rate. Once they know those things, that's when we should be telling them that abstinence is the best choice. So as much as I want to forget about the fact that Palin's daughter is pregnant and stop talking about it, I can't.

I feel that the personal life of a candidate for public office offers insight into how they will conduct themselves if they are elected. I don't know if the pregnancy of Palin's daughter by itself offers any kind of new insight about her, but her conduct from here on will. Will she continue to advocate for abstinence only sex ed despite the fact that it was ineffective in her personal life? I think it matters.