Personal lives are immaterial in politics

Another week has come and gone and another political sex scandal has steeped. This time with former New York Congressman Anthony Weiner — again.

Weiner is fighting like mad to make a rapid political comeback after resigning his congressional seat due to a sexting scandal. He seeks the only mayorship in America that matters — New York City. But he also finds himself right back in the thick of it, it having been revealed that he didn’t exactly stop sexting random women he meets on the Internet after he resigned in disgrace and promised to be a changed man.

By the grace of God — or something — his wife has again forgiven his virtual indiscretions and asked the people of New York to elect her husband despite his tomfoolery. But the question remains: Will sexters in the city forgive Weiner’s dalliances? Only time will tell.

Meanwhile, in the same city, former (disgraced) Gov. Eliot Spitzer is also seeking political redemption. His personal shortcomings were discussed in this column two weeks ago. In short, while governor, he sought out high-priced hookers and more eggregiously (in my opinion) cheated on his wife. But as I mentioned previously, he paid the price for his mistakes and somehow his wife has also forgiven him.

Personally, I couldn’t care less who Eliot Spitzer and Anthony Weiner send nude photos to. It matters not one iota who they sleep with on their own time. And as stated previously, I don’t even care if they pay for it — and the voters of the Big Apple shouldn’t either.

What should matter to people is whether these people can do a good job at the offices they’re running for.

The concept of “character counts” when it comes to politics should be thrown right out the window. We’re not voting for the position of best friend. We’re not hiring a nanny. We’re looking for people who can make decisions that are in the best interest of our communities as a whole.

You may recall about 15 years ago or so when the biggest problem this nation had was the fact that our Commander in Chief had an affair with an intern. Sure other people had other issues with him, but really his biggest flaw was his sexual ego.

After Bill Clinton left office, we got a member of the moral majority in charge and things kind of went to pot. Coincidence? Maybe. But I’ll take Bill Clinton’s flaws over George W. Bush’s any day.

There is, however, a portion of the country that would disagree with me wholeheartedly. They’d rather have a squeeky clean moralist who royally stinks at running the country than a jerk who’s really good at it.

I want my friends to be nice people but I don’t really care if they’re good at their jobs. I want my employees to be good at their jobs but I don’t really care if they’re good at their marriages.

When it comes down to it, politicians are our employees and unless their personal lives make them incapable of doing their jobs, they should remain personal. Not public.

Scott Leffler is an expert in character flaws and schooled in politics. Follow him on Twitter @scottleffler.

Warm weather plays tricks on my mind

Now that the weather seems to have switched to spring for good (ignoring the snow on the ground Monday morning), my mind has jumped forward to all the fun things I want to do this summer.

Add in my impending income tax refund and I feel like I’ve won the lottery and just have to cash in my check. Never mind the pittance that is my tax refund is all but already spent.

With warmer weather, I start thinking about summer festivals and concerts and just doing things outside.

Last week my oldest and I got milkshakes in what I hope I hope to be a recurring theme over the course of the next several months. Milk shakes always perk things up.

Every year I create a list of things I want to do that year. And most years I have to roll several things over. The last two summers I had to roll “skydiving” into the next year. I’m hoping to actually be able to cross it off my bucket list this year.

Many people think my desire to skydive is a bit peculiar — especially when coupled with my completely rational fear of spiders. In perspective: Plunging to my death is not a concern ... but spiders freak me out.

I’d also like to run with the bulls in Pamplona. But that first requires that I get to Spain, which is a rather lofty goal since the furthest I’ve traveled away from home in the past two years is a trip to Rochester in October.

I like to travel. I miss New York City and have been jonesing for a trip to Washington DC since I was leaving the city in April of 2011. I’d also like to find my way back to Ohio this year to visit my alma mater. Haven’t been there in about a decade.

DC, NYC and Ashland, Ohio were all on my “to-do list” in 2012. And they all rolled over to 2013. Let’s hope they don’t roll over to 2014.

It’s not that there’s not a lot of fun things to do right here in Western New York. But I have always suffered from wanderlust.

Over the past couple years, I’ve really fallen in love with taking photos of everything I do. Maybe it’s due to the popularity of that hobby on the Internet. More likely it’s that my phones have had pretty decent cameras on them and as such, I always have the capability of taking cool photos in the palm of my hand.

My latest phone has a 3D camera. I thought it was gimmicky and didn’t expect to use it but have been surprised at just how cool it is. Needless to say, I have a nice collection of 3D photos now and really look forward to taking 3D photos over everything this summer.

Of course, I have to remind myself that it’s not summer yet. And my tax refund is not really comparable to lottery winnings. But the dreamer in me is excited.

Scott Leffler is a newspaper columnist and former radio talk show host. Apparently that makes him part of the problem for which positivity is the only solution. Follow his tweets @scottleffler.