Best Way To Lose An Election, Tell The Truth

In most ways, the whole and absolute truth in all statements is the best way I know of for a politician to lose 'big time' on election day. Americans are fond of saying that all they really want in political leaders is for them to be honest and to tell the truth at all times. However, in reality, the whole truth is something most people only think they want to hear. In a court of law, when a person is called to testify they are sworn in and are commanded to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth or face court sanctions known as perjury.

In political life the whole truth will often times find a politician in the 'dog house' with voters back home because no two people really think exactly alike when it comes to the truth. Some people only tell the whole truth when they are caught doing something wrong and no amount of lying will get them out of trouble. An example of that way of thinking can be found in the behavior of former Governor Eliot Spitzer of New York and his hypocritical conduct of putting people in jail for soliciting prostitution during the day while he visited the same kind of seedy locations at night.

While nearly every American proclaims that they always want to hear the whole truth when it comes to politics, in reality the best way to lose an election is to tell the whole truth to voters. I remember when Walter Mondale was running against Ronald Reagan several decades ago. In one of their general election run up debates, Senator Mondale said that both he and Ronald Reagan would raise taxes on the American people, but only he - Mondale - would tell the American people the truth and admit it. Walter Mondale's honesty not only cost him that election, but he also lost in one of the biggest landslide elections in generations.

The next time you hear a politician talking out of both sides of his or her mouth, try and remember that most Americans only want to hear the truth when that truth benefits them personally. Good politicians have mastered 'double speak' where they can completely contradict themselves from one sentence to the next without the general public thinking they have lost their minds. In many ways, politicians are exactly like the people they represent. They want to be honest in all things, but at the end of the day if that honesty does not benefit them directly - they fall back on an endless supply of excuses as to why they did not do their job correctly and more importantly tell the truth in the first place.