In today's political world it seems that nothing is sacred anymore. There was a time when it was understood that the politician was the only person up for election.
Those times have changed recently with the politician's family entering the voter's state of mind more and more as evidenced by the public's genuine dislike of Teresa Heinz Kerry during the election of 2004 or the public's examination of President Bush's daughters.
I don't know if anybody can be too sure of how, why or when this started to happen. When we look back at American political history, we see that there were times that this microscope that we look through was simply not used. An example of such is the personal life of former President John Kennedy that has only recently been looked at in books like "The Dark Side of Camelot".
A few days ago, I had the pleasure of spending an afternoon with former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney's 32-year-old son and father of three, Josh Romney, as he did a series of interviews in the Valley touting an upcoming fundraiser for his father's presidential campaign.
Josh spent most of his time growing up in the Boston area and did his undergraduate work at Brigham Young University before heading over to the Harvard Business School.
Josh's involvement in his father's campaign is something that he clearly enjoys, and it's evidenced by his visiting all 99 counties in the state of Iowa in advance of the Iowa Republican Party Straw Poll in a Winnebago purchased out of the Phoenix area.
With Josh consenting to interviews and taking such a large role in the Romney campaign, it is understood that he, just like any other candidate's son/daughter, accepts that there may be tough questions, there may be people who dig into his personal life, and that he has to be careful so that his efforts serve only to help the campaign as a whole.
What about those children or spouses who choose to stay out of the limelight of the campaign? Or what about the children or spouses of politicians who get in the news for things that may be detrimental to their political parents or significant other? Is it the public's place to delve into the personal lives of those children and spouses?
These are all questions that seem to have come into play more and more both in Arizona and across the country in the last few years.
Just a few months ago, former Vice President Al Gore's son was pulled over after possibly breaking a Toyota Prius speed record by being clocked at 100mph and having marijuana in his possession. That obviously didn't do his father Al any favors, but should his wrongdoing really have affected his father in that way?
Luckily for Al Gore III, his father isn't running for office anytime soon, so the effects of his actions are likely never to be fully seen.
Is all of that healthy for the political process however? Is it really necessary for us to know that information, especially when we're dealing with grown children of politicians who are able to make their own decisions?
I believe the answer is no. We all know that one of the objectives in a political campaign is to search out every single possible weakness that your opponent may have so that they can be exposed to the public. Another reason that we see this more often nowadays is that our news is given to us not only through newspapers but by our access to the 24-hour Internet and cable news networks.
Whatever the reason may be for this infatuation with the personal lives of candidates' families, it is my belief that a line is crossed that probably shouldn't be when dealing with the children of candidates or current officeholders. Too often we over-scrutinize the children or spouses of candidates and forget whose name is actually on the ballot.
T.J. Shope is a political science senior. He can be reached at: thomas.shope@asu.edu.
