Candidates Victims of 'Gotcha'

Somewhat more than daily someone known by someone who endorsed some presidential candidate embarrasses the candidate and gives opponents an occasion to play a game of "Pounce! Gotcha!"

The game threatens to trivialize politics and distract candidates and the public from worthwhile debate.

At the moment we are spending $5,000 per second to wage a war whose origins, prosecution, and possible some-day conclusion deserve most serious attention We are told that the current financial crisis could portend disaster unmatched since the Great Depression, after 1929. All sides agree that the health care system is broken and millions of citizens, especially children, have little access to what is left of it. All the surviving candidates are capable of seriously addressing this topic, but when victims of 'Gotcha!' they victimize the other candidates, giving sick pleasure to those whose vision of politics is narrow, small, and threatened.

In the medieval monasteries there were those whose job it was to point an accusing finger at monks and nuns and brothers and others for the slightest flaws. In turn their colleagues pointed at them. To get the jump on each other, many of them confessed in such detail that their confessors grew weary. Thus Martin Luther's confessor John Staupitz, after a six-hour monastery session, moaned, "Brother Martin, you don't have to confess every fart!"

Candidates attract all kinds of supporters with all kinds of agendas. They solicit support from people who have experiences vastly different from their own. Many of them same unacceptable things, which are part of the poison in the body politic. Most of them, however, are more like rash on the skin than cancer in the marrow.

So it's time to call a moratorium when a candidate missteps, mispeaks, misthinks on illuminating but not crucial issues. Denouncing, renouncing, and distancing have become such common activities that they lose their effect. We have all seen gross perversions of the political process among some backers, and do well to stay alert to the influence of gross perverters of the process. What we need is a sense of proportion and restraint.

Some criticize candidates for changing the subject when a "gotcha!" point or question comes up. So long as they change it to substantial issues about which crucial debate should continue, let's let them off easy and do them and the nation a favor: change the subject.

By Martin Marty  |  April 7, 2008; 4:38 PM ET Save & Share:                 
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Posted by: Garyd | April 8, 2008 9:07 PM
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