People who aspire to the presidency want to go down in history. But if they’ve committed adultery, that overrides anything else they have ever done. As one writer has expressed it, “The fact of [the candidate’s] adultery is the philosopher’s stone that converts the rest of his life to dross.”

It is often said that we want our president to be just like ourselves, only better.

We look for presidents who are an image of ourselves, but imbued with heroic capabilities and with the photos airbrushed. Maybe that lofty expectation is why we have no tolerance when we learn that a presidential candidate has cheated on their marriage partner.

The end may be either a sudden death or a slow one, but an arrogant response to revelations of past or present adultery is certainly fatal to a presidential candidacy.

Remember Sen. Gary Hart? He was the clear frontrunner for the Democratic nomination in the 1988 election when rumors began to surface that he might be having an extramarital affair. He challenged the press by saying, “Follow me around. I don’t care. I’m serious. If anybody wants to put a tail on me, go ahead.”

Two Miami Herald investigative reporters already had been doing that. They were watching Hart’s D.C. townhouse when they saw Donna Rice, a 29 year-old model, leave his home. They reported it, Hart still denied the affair, and then came the death blow – the report that he had taken an overnight Bahamas cruise with her, with a dockside photo of Donna Rice sitting on Hart’s lap, and Hart wearing a tee-shirt emblazoned with the yacht’s name: “Monkey Business”.

In 2004, John Edwards had been the vice presidential running mate of John Kerry, which made him the likely 2008 Democratic nominee. Shortly after he made the December 2006 announcement of his intention to compete in the 2008 presidential election, stories surfaced that he was having an affair with Rielle Hunter, a filmmaker hired by his campaign.

Despite Edwards’ denials, his campaign could not get traction and he kept finishing third in the primaries, behind Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.

In 2008, Edwards finally admitted to the affair, but still denied he had fathered Hunter’s child. In 2010, he eventually admitted paternity. In 2011, Edwards was indicted on six federal felony charges related to improperly using campaign money to pay for non-campaign activities with Hunter. His trial is currently scheduled for January 30, 2012.

Four women had accused Herman Cain of sexual improprieties, but it was Ginger White’s TV interviews saying she’d been having an affair with Cain for 13 years that prompted Herman Cain to “suspend” his bid for the Republican nomination. Cain acknowledged he had not told his wife he had been paying Ms. White’s “month-to-month bills and expenses”, but he still denied adultery.

While Newt Gingrich was married to Jackie Battley, he began an affair with Marianne Ginther. After Newt Gingrich married Marianne Ginther, he began an affair with Callista Bisek, to whom he is now married. When asked in a CBN interview about those affairs, Gingrich said: “There’s no question at times in my life, partially driven by how passionately I felt about this country, that I worked too hard and things happened in my life that were not appropriate.”

People who aspire to the presidency want to go down in history. But if they’ve committed adultery, that overrides anything else they have ever done. As one writer has expressed it, “The fact of [the candidate’s] adultery is the philosopher’s stone that converts the rest of his life to dross.”

Perhaps, though, even these adulterous presidential candidates are helpful to us, because the consequences of their failures certainly do provide good object lessons for our own lives.

Mike Sharman, a resident of Foothills of Faith Farm in Madison County, Virginia, has served as an attorney and guardian for children for more than two decades. Mike writes a weekly editorial column published by the Culpeper Star-Exponent. You may contact him at [email protected]