Source: By Niyazz/Shutterstock In order to run for public office, a person has to be able to accept continual assaults on his or her personhood. Human beings don’t like that experience. And so presidents, for instance, develop each his (so far) own style of coping: Truman was in your face, Eisenhower hid out in plain sight, Kennedy relied on family and personal charisma, Johnson (the power master) reverted to his outsider origin story, Nixon arguably descended into paranoia, Carter was holier-than-thou, Reagan lived in a Hollywood castle “on the hill,” aristocratic Bush I tried to be just one of the folks, Clinton lived a life impervious to normal standards, Bush II lived in a hazy world dominated by VP Cheney, Obama was above it all, and Trump goes the furthest in creating an alternative universe in which he resides.
But now we have Governor Ralph Northam of Virginia. Northam was seemingly an ideal candidate for a state transitioning from red to blue—a moderate Democrat, he is from a rural background, became a doctor, and served in the military in that capacity. Thus he wouldn't alarm cautious Virginians veering into the Democratic column for the first time.
Then came his medical yearbook revelation—a picture of a man wearing blackface standing next to a Klansman appeared on his page. A party photo showed a Klansman, responsible for lynching thousands of African Americans, next to a smiling blackface white man. To be associated with such a photo is not only political death, it could tar Northam as a bigot for the rest of his life. He couldn't let the attack on his personage prevail.
Last Saturday, Northam explained. Here are the top half-dozen takeaways and the questions they raise, none of which is good for Northam.
1. Northam denied that he was one of the figures in the photo, saying he never believed that he was. But he had confessed and apologized for appearing in the photo after seeing it on Friday. Do you know your own life, Governor?
2. He denied putting the photo on his page and said he had never seen it before. No one at your medical school who viewed your page thought this was unusual or told you about it?
3. The yearbook was published in 1984; Northam volunteered that that same year, he applied brown shoe polish to his face in a Michael Jackson imitation competition that he bragged about winning. Governor, didn’t you know that it was inappropriate to apply blackface when you were in your last year of medical school?
4. Northam then referenced how hard it is to remove shoe polish from one’s face, asking if people in the audience were familiar with that experience. You think it is a standard practice for people to have applied blackface?
5. He then contemplated doing his moonwalk, until his wife restrained him. You think this is funny, Governor?
6. Northam said that a young black campaign worker told him (presumably after he referenced his Jackson episode) about his 1984 blackface incident that it was inappropriate. You mean you only learned recently, during your campaign for Governor, not to apply and appear in blackface?
Northam has so far ignored the demands of every leading Democrat in his state, and virtually all prominent Democrats nationally, that he resign.
The biggest takeaway is that we must assess how each political candidate will deal with the onslaught of personal attacks, whether justified or not, in deciding whether they can lead.