SALENA ZITO: The politicians we deserve.
In the spring of 2011, then-governor Mitch Daniels of Indiana announced he would not seek the Republican presidential nomination, ending months of excitement among conservatives around his possible run. His family’s reservations under the spotlight far outweighed any political pressure he may have been feeling, and he gracefully bowed out.
His decision was a low point for conservatives hungry for that Midwestern sensibility and sharp wit that Daniels embodied. The former political adviser to Ronald Reagan and head of George W. Bush’s Office of Management and Budget, Daniels was a rock star in the conservative movement. But the Daniels family had a complicated past. He and his wife had married, divorced, and eventually remarried one another.
Most people would have called that a happy ending. On social media, you can imagine, that story would have been told very differently.
Fast forward seven years. Daniels says had he had to make that choice in today’s political climate, he would have reached his conclusion significantly faster.
“At the time, it was a decision that took months for me to consider, one I put great thought into with my family. Today, it would take me less than ten minutes to decide not to run,” he said from his office at Purdue University, where he serves as its president, a position he took in January 2013 at the conclusion of his second term as governor of the state of Indiana.
Daniels’ decision as a possible presidential candidate was a very high-profile example of when good men and women decide not to run for office, not because they aren’t capable, not because they lack leadership qualities, but because of the personal cost to their lives, reputations, and their family’s stability.
Yesterday’s goofy yearbook or Facebook likes and posts or ironic tweets are now analyzed and distorted into falsehoods by thousands of anonymous Twitter trolls hired by opposition forces manned by professional digital teams disguised to look organic. These trolls attract mobs, and irrationality takes over social media, eventually making its way into traditional news stories that can destroy not just a candidate’s political career, but also their life.
Yes.