Family: Isn't it about time...for something substantive?

So, Saturday morning I had occasion to listen to a couple of aspirants for public office as they pitched their respective candidacies.

Candidate A (who also happened to be the featured speaker at the event I attended) stood up next to his wife and proceeded to talk about his family. He has two sons who, apparently, have grown up rather quickly. He has a wonderful wife. At a critical point in his legal career, he learned compassion by representing a single father raising two sons. As an elected official, he intends to protect families, in particular women and children. While taking his sons to an event related to their sporting activities, he felt uncomfortable by the group of apparently single Hispanic men he encountered. As Candidate A told his anecdotes and attempted to articulate his vision for public office, I couldn't help but wonder if he was using references to family to make his policy ideas more concrete, or if he just was using his policy ideas and anecdotes as vehicles to enable him to make more concrete references to families.

Candidate B stood up and commanded the floor for less than a tenth the amount of time allotted to Candidate A. In that time, she managed to concisely describe her administrative skills and experience. She described her current position, the skills she brought to it, and special projects and honors bestowed on her as a result of her work. She didn't mention her marital or family status, though she did, unfortunately, mention her Mormon religious affiliation. Most importantly, she explained with passion why she was running for office.

After the meeting, several participants eagerly approached Candidate B and offered to help with her campaign. Candidate B approached me, asked me where I lived, and asked for my contact info. I noticed Candidate A leave the room, arm in arm with his wife, and got the distinct impression, from his failure to even smile at me, much less engage me (or anyone else that I could tell) in any level of conversation, that he couldn't have cared less whether he ever had occasion to see me again (even though I had met him and had had lunch with him and his law partner earlier this year when he argued a capital murder case). I can only guess that he had a family to get back home to.

Of course, I had family to go home to, as well. Everyone in that room that morning was part of a family. The biology of human sexual reproduction has provided every person who ever walked into a poll booth with a nice little family to think about (fondly or otherwise) during political speeches. Of course, I suppose that on some level, in some circles, a person's ability to persuade another to enter into a marital relationship and produce and/or raise children counts for something.

Politics isn't one of those circles.

Of course, I say this as a single, 32 year old man with no children. But really, it's not at all clear to me why the mere, simple existence of a politician's wife and children have any business forming a significant portion of a campaign speech. I mean, I understand that candidates and their political advisors want voters to feel comfortable with them on a personal level. But there are a ton of incompetent and/or ruthless and/or corrupt and/or plain old nasty politicians out there who have spouses and children.

And a single candidate can create a helluva better personal connection with his audience by shaking hands, smiling, asking for names and contact info, and, maybe, taking the time to actually get to know the folks he professes a desire to serve. Single, childless candidates can do those things at least as well as married ones (with offspring to hurry back to).

I want to know what a candidate would do to actually help her constituents. I want to believe that a candidate is capable of achieving her goals. And I want to feel like the candidate has the drive and determination to actually come through for me. When a candidate drones on about his family, he risks losing me very quickly, especially when he appears to be incorporating references to "family" as a vehicle to somehow fulfill, mechanically, his fancied notions of what references should appropriately be made to ensnare the witless emotional attachment of an easily manipulated public.

Now, I'm not saying a good candidate can't effectively and appropriately incorporate family references into a campaign speech. Michelle Obama very, very effectively spoke about her husband and family when she came to Utah to campaign during the primary last year. The difference between Michelle Obama and guys like Candidate A, though (beside the speechwriters...), for me at least, is that while Michelle referred to her family to demonstrate her husband's understanding of issues and his competence and passion for policies to improve the lives of his constituents, Candidate A seemed to be under the impression that simply having a wife and children, and mentioning frequently families and children, would make him appear to be more attractive.

Maybe to some people it does. Even in Utah County, though, a single guy like Bill Orton will win against a family man like Karl Snow. Substantive policy ideas, effectively argued with passion and a sincere desire to know and serve constituents, make a far better candidate than a color-coordinated family portrait.