Does Your Candidate's Personal Life Matter?

Most of us want our public officials to be squeaky clean. We want them to be good looking, have great families and be well spoken.

But with the media digging around and scrutinizing everything, most people wouldn't be able to maintain that image.

When President Bill Clinton was in office conflicts with other countries were at a minimum, the economy was doing great and there were jobs out there.

And then the Monica Lewinsky scandal came and voters were forced to think about whether they could support a candidate that had a dark background, even if it was a detriment to our way of living.

Lennie Jaratt, a Republican candidate for the 31st District in Lake County, is trying to get ahead of the story. He has admitted that his house is in foreclosure as a result of some hard economic times.

But does that matter to you, the voter? Does it matter if a candidate is open about something negative in their personal life?

Joe Walsh's background has been scrutinized lately. In 2010 he admitted after winning the Republican ticket that he had a foreclosure. He later admitted that he should have disclosed it during his campaign. Now Walsh has come under attack after reports came out that he owed his ex-wife $117,000 in child support.

But the question here isn't whether he's a bad guy. The question is whether you'd vote for a candidate if you felt he had a questionable background.

Let's say a candidate running for Governor of Illinois has had two DUI arrests and owed $50,000 in back taxes. Would you vote for him?

Now let's say you had the ability to see the future, and that same candidate was going to balance the state budget, create millions of jobs and fix the pension problem. Now would you vote for him?

There's not a simple answer. For some of us, it depends upon the skeletons in the closet. Maybe having a house in foreclosure doesn't matter to you, but it does to someone else. Allegedly owing child support could mean Walsh is bad with finances, or it could be a terrible misunderstanding. Even if he's completely at fault, does it matter if he's still the best candidate?

With any candidate, it can feel like you're making a deal with the devil if you're willing to look past questionable backgrounds for the good of the whole. Or maybe you stick with your conscience and you only vote for the squeaky clean.

How do you decide? Vote and tell us in the comment section below.