Los 'buena gente' no ganan las elecciones

A propósito de la contienda presidencial en los Estados Unidos, Anne Applebaum, columnista del Washington Post y Slate, se sorprende de la cobertura mediática, particularmente la noción de que el electorado debe escandalizarse por los 'errores' que cometen los candidatos, sus familias o sus asesores y por ello explica las razones por las cuales las 'buenas gentes' no ganan procesos electorales.

Aquí el artículo.

Aquí dos párrafos interesantes.

• From whatever political quarter it comes, and regardless of whatever merit it may have, all of this commentary starts with the same assumption: The reader is meant to be shocked, shocked, that these two men—men who have submitted themselves to months of brutal campaigning, men who have thrown their wives and families to the wolves, men who know they might at any second need to abandon their closest friends—these two men are not, in fact, very nice people at all!

• Think hard, as well, about what a presidential campaign truly demands of a candidate. To become president, you must love talking about yourself: Talk, talk, brag and talk, every day, every evening, on national television, in the company of newspaper reporters, in every spare moment, and not just for a few days or weeks but for years and years on end. If you don't crave attention; if you don't long for adulation; if you don't, at some level, feel you are God's gift to the American people, then you don't run for president at all.

Anne Applebaum es autora de un magnífico libro, Gulag.