A little personal fiction

Despite all my years being paid to hang around politicians at the local, state and national level, I continue to be amazed at their capacity for smoking their own exhaust, as it were.

More than once I have looked into someone’s self-described credentials — a college degree, a military combat record, a policy achievement, a business success — only to discover that the details had been fudged, exaggerated, overstated or nonexistent.

Not a lie, so much, as personal fiction. One that has been reinforced through time and repeated tellings such that it takes on the internal truth of a closed circuit.

Swalwell presented himself as a family man of integrity, a righteous defender of democracy, valiantly holding President Trump accountable. He used that as a springboard to an office for which he had no relevant experience.

Now, it turns out, his personal reality caught up with his personal fiction. This might explain why his initial response was to deny everything.

Did he think these terrible and all-too-credible accusations would never surface? Or had he convinced himself that it simply did not happen? That what mattered was the new, more useful image?

As F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote — as applicable here as ever — “So we beat on, boats against the current, borne ceaselessly into the past.”

At least, it could be argued, Democrats find this behavior so objectionable sufficient to sink a career. Many of us have been wondering if personal conduct was still relevant, or whether Trump broke all the rules, never to be repaired.

It turns out, it just depends on expectations. Swalwell fell well short of the image he tried to sell us.

Trump, on the other hand, never bothered to set high expectations for his own personal conduct. Indeed, the Holy Doctor continues to set our expectations so low for his own behavior that it may be impossible for him to fall short.

With all the hoo-ha, it is worth pointing out there is a race for governor, and it is time to stop seeing it as a shambles.

Nine candidates remain actively campaigning, two Republicans and seven Democrats.

One Republican, conservative commentator Steve Hilton, has been endorsed by Trump. This would seem to ring down the curtain on the fear that the large Democratic field would dilute those votes and the two Reeps would win the primary.

The remaining seven Democrats are, in fact, credible and well-credentialed. Some of them are well prepared for the specific duties of the job of running the world’s fourth largest economy and the country’s largest state government.

There will be much speculation about who benefits from Swalwell’s downfall. Usually, when a candidate drops out, that person’s share tends to be split among the remaining candidates in proportions that reflect the current standings.

This would seem to benefit U.S. Rep. Katie Porter, who has been unable to shake the early and damning images of temperamental behavior toward the media and staff. That was months ago, however, and it is always a question if the same criticism would adhere as closely to a male candidate.

Anyway, it would be nice to see some interviews in which she has a chance to confound that image. Those of us here at the Daily Journal are always available.

Heck, it would be nice to find out anything about any of them, except, perhaps, billionaire Tom Steyer, who seems unable to stop telling us about himself.

But the candidates can only tell us so much, and we would do well to view it with some skepticism, given recent events. In the end, no one is going to sweep through the remaining days and emerge as a savior.

The answer, as it always has been, is to save yourself.

It is a decision that is rapidly approaching. Mail-in ballots will drop May 4, a scant 18 days from now. You will have 29 days to make your decision and deliver it to the local elections office. Given all the nonsensical challenges to mail-in ballots, you might be well advised to make sure your ballot is in the elections office by June 2.

Time to pay attention.