I’m not saying that people can’t or shouldn’t take it personally- but at the end of the day, I do think this hand-wringing is counterproductive and sets people up for failure.
In this day and age, Roosevelt or Kennedy would have neeeever gotten elected.

I like to think that ultimately this is the same for men as for women.

But Catty is right that it’s ultimately all about his voting record at the end of the day. That being said, I have heard that there are ordinary workplaces where if you are cheating on your spouse (and not necessarily with a coworker) and your coworkers know about it it can and will affect your career negatively.

I read this article about Villaraigosa losing Latina support over this affair: http://www.mercurynews.com/search/ci_6331068?nclick_check=1

I think Latinas are basically taking this personally, looking at Villaraigosa and seeing that man that maybe left them or their friend for a younger woman. Perhaps this is a consequence of peopel feeling connected to their elected officials as opposed to them being horses in a race or something. Moreover, it seems the Latino/a community thinks a lot like many other conservative Christians where one’s personal behavior is a reflection fo what their tethics would be in office.

Maybe, as liberal non-Latino/as (and I as a non-Californian), we are speaking from a certain amount of diatance and privilage in saying that people should focus on his record in office and not what he does in bed (no matter how right we believe we are) and how we are so sick of Americans obsesing about heterosexual marriage and monogamy.

We may think it’s bullshit but for them its very, very real and we should try to respect that.

Just once I wish I could hear a politician say that monogamy sucks. Relationships should not be based on sex.

If he’s rattled on about the evils of infidelity, then he deserves to get canned for being a blatant hypocrite. If he hasn’t yammered about adultery, leave him be.

Just because someone is a feminist does not make them immune to cheating or making mistakes. It does not. Why should his record be tarnished now? That’s similar to people that would bring up infidelity in order to tarnish MLK’s record.

Americans’ obsession with monogamy and het. marriage is tiresome. I agree with Amand on that regard 100%.

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What does that mean exactly? Full and equal partner.

Take a look at a WHOLE lot of marriages, and you basically see a sex-for-money/status bargain.

He’s doing his job by providing status and money. Is she pulling her weight by being attractive?

It goes a long way to describe how I feel about “Mr. Sad Sack.” A man I felt I could count on to seek a woman in his life who was capable of being his full and equal partner–instead turned to the easy path of choosing a partner whose chief attributes are youth, attractiveness and worshipful naivete. At least that’s how I see it.

Also, this particular woman was compromising her journalistic principles by attempting to report on the man with whom she was having an affair. She was supposedly largely recused from his beat, but apparently not in entirety, or she wouldn’t be in trouble in that area. What I don’t understand is what ever made her think that becoming intimately involved with someone she reported on could ever be OK.

Bingo!! It’s a self-defense mechanism against bigotry. But make no doubt—it’s a response to the pre-existing bigotry. (Remember, you’re talking to a woman whose very ethnicity is practically synonymous with organized crime.)

What I take issue with is the very notion of exceptionalism—that there are those of us who need to come up with “rising stars” in order to combat the undeserved negative imagery we have courtesy of prejudice. I don’t think it’s an effective tactic for dealing with bigotry, because the “rising stars” of exceptionalism either become fallen stars, or “exceptions to the rule.”

But the disappointment expressed in that article is different from the disappointment expressed in your post. The people quoted in that article weren’t thinking that Villaraigosa’s actions dealt a body blow to feminism; they seemed concerned that a man who would abandon his wife so willfully would not be altogether concerned about remaining faithful to his constituency, either. That his actions revealed a character they no longer felt willing to vote for. What I gathered from your post was an air of exceptionalism—that Villaraigosa is a disappointment because he was supposed to be the “different” one. Different from whom? Different from other Latino men, or different from men?

I’m torn, there. It’s only natural that people will be glad to see a rising star from their group, and then disappointed if that rising star doesn’t, after all, have all the qualities you want to show up those other people who look down on you. So of course there are going to be some Latinos who are especially disappointed in Villaraigosa right now.

But I also remember when Agnew resigned, watching the TV cameras go into Greek neighborhoods to get a reaction, and feeling frustrated - I never liked the guy, never supported him, and didn’t feel he particularly had much to do with me just because we were both Greek-American. So why should the fact that he turned out to be corrupt reflect on me at all?

Methinks WASP men are every bit as likely as Latinos or us Mediterranean types to cheat; they just have better PR

You’re probably right.

Infidelity just makes a better story, a sexier one, an easier one to follow anyway, than a betrayal of principles or promises that actually effects the public in a tangible way.