Clinton and personal scandals in contemporary politics.

Quite a few people were surprised to see in the late 1990s that no political (or personal) scandal seemed to have any effect on Bill Clinton's popularity level. The clearest example of this was, of course, the Lewinsky scandal. The Republicans strategists thought they had finally caught Clinton in a situation that would pretty much force him to resign or that, at the very least, would have a significant cost for the Democrats at the ballot box. Morris, however, has a completely different approach to the issue:

One of the reasons politicians like Clinton have proven less vulnerable than one might expect to constant attacks on their characters, is that voters don't want to have to trust a candidate to make decisions for them. They want their elected officials on a shorter leash. Voters now insist that a candidate spell out his program, his vision, his ideas, and then they will elect him to fulfill that specific mandate. As Tina Turner sang, "What's love got to do with it?"

(Morris: pp. 32-33)

I'm not sure I totally agree with Morris' view though. I am convinced voters view a politician as a professional these days: as long as he delivers, we don't have to care about his personal affairs. To put it a different way: do we want to see the Government (or even media) mingle with our own personal affairs? I believe the centrality of media these days has led people to learn the importance of privacy. Sure, ogling into other people's lives is tempting, and everybody does it to one extent or another. Yet, we also know that each person's life is his or her own. We have learned to respect that, at least in general terms. As a matter of fact, I'd say that the main reason that makes a given type of media that specializes in airing information about the private lives of big stars so popular is directly related to the fact that people see it as mere entertainment. In other words, people who consume this type of media is fully aware that the whole thing may not be more than a big lie, a marketing plot set up to spread a given public image of the star in question. People are far more media savvy than we want to give them credit for. In this sense, political "scandals" that only affect the politicians' personal lives are nothing but fodder for this particular form of gossip entertainment. People couldn't care any less about them, except to gossip, discuss and joke about it. That's all. Scandals of a real political nature, of course, are a completely different thing.