Slate‘s Jessica Grose on Christine O’Donnell’s sex, lies, and videotape problem:
Though certainly O’Donnell is an extreme example, I wonder if she is a harbinger of political coverage to come—by which I mean, I can foresee a media universe in which old, dumb Facebook posts and unearthed tweets become a consistent source of fodder for journalists. O’Donnell is 41, so her earlier transgressions were on an older media, television. However, the incredibly quick dissemination of O’Donnell’s ridiculous comments is all thanks to blogs and online video. Budding candidates a decade or two younger have lived their entire adult lives with these media. They’ve also lived in a world where most people have camera phones and even video—so there is an even greater chance that mistakes they made in their college years and beyond will be available for public viewing.
Agreed.
Just wanna add: “old, dumb Facebook posts and unearthed tweets” become less politically damaging with every passing day and every new, dumb Facebook post. The electorate of the future will be more understanding/forgiving about those old, dumb posts/tweets—because the electorate of the future will have stupidly Facebooked and Tweeted and sexted their way through their teens, twenties, and thirties themselves. Voters in a decade or two won’t just be shrugging off pictures of candidates smoking joints, but pictures of candidates smoking pole (or having their poles smoked).
Who is Christine O’Donnell?
Yes Christine O’Donnell dabbled in witchcraft, but she didn’t spell.
False! The electorate will continue to be self-righteous and hypocritical. It’s what the electorate does. Any past transgression against a perceived (but not shared) norm of moral conduct will be mercilessly (and, in the future, more quickly and efficiently) exploited for political gain.
The electorate loves nothing more than a good moral outrage.