Arnold Schwarzenegger and Mildred Patricia Baena are proof positive that the intoxicating elixir of power, influence, sex and money can fuel the long-held notion of white privilege and spell disaster for traditional family values.
Schwarzenegger’s 10-year-old love child with Baena may be the most damning incident to hit the “party of moral conscience,” but still only scratches the surface of a systematic public face versus a private life web of Republican deceit.
Here are seven other “family values” Republicans who got caught living the very lifestyles that they voted against.
Republican State Senator Randy Hopper, Wisconsin
Public life: State Senator Randy Hopper used the images of his wife and young children extensively in his 2008 campaign. Pro-family values, stand-up guy also worked with the 2009-2010 Children and Families and Workforce Development committee.
Private life: Hopper didn’t even live with his wife and kids. Hopper actually had a love nest outside the district with his 25-year-old mistress. The mistress was given a state job, for which she was compensated at a much higher rate, and was also employed by a Conservative lobbying firm. Hopper’s wife spilled the beans.
Republican State Senator Roy Ashburn, California
Public life: Ultra conservative state Senator Roy Ashburn repeatedly voted against gay rights. He voted against expanding anti-discrimination laws to include sexual orientation, and against a holiday for the (late) gay lawmaker, Harvey Milk.
Private life: Ashburn was arrested on drunk driving charges after leaving a gay bar. He has since acknowledged that he is gay.
Republican Governor Mark Sanford, South Carolina
Public life: Mark Sanford voted for President Clinton’s impeachment and the removal of Newt Gingrich as House Speaker, due to their infidelity.
Private life: Disappeared during Father’s Day weekend, only to return and confess an extramarital affair in Argentina.
Larry Craig, Republican Senator, Idaho
Public life: Voted against extending the federal definition of hate crimes to cover sexual orientation. He also voted for the Federal Marriage Amendment, which barred extension of rights to same-sex couples.
Private life: Arrested on charges of lewd behavior with an undercover male police officer investigating inappropriate liaisons in a Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport men’s room. Craig entered a guilty plea and paid a $500 fine, but later battled to have his guilty plea overturned.
Republican Representative Mark Foley, Florida 16th Congressional District
Public life: Dated women and voted against gay rights initiatives.
Private life: Resigned after attempting to solicit sex from male congressional pages via an instant messenger program.
Republican Governor Jim Gibbons, Arizona
Public life: A Mormon, he once stated: “I’ve gone to a lot of different churches in my life, from Baptist to Episcopal to Presbyterian to LDS [Latter-day Saints], but I have always considered myself LDS.”
Private life: In 2008, Arizona Governor Jim Gibbons served divorce papers to his wife of 23 years, Dawn. In unsealed court documents, Dawn Gibbons outlined her suspicion that her husband had affairs with the wives of two Reno doctors and that he divorced her to be with yet another woman.
Republican Senator John Ensign, Nevada
Public life: Rated 100 percent by the Christian Coalition for his pro-family voting record.
Private life: Confessed to an extramarital affair with a married staffer. Claimed the staffer tried to extort him. The truth was that Ensign’s parents were paying the staffer and her husband with jobs and money to keep the affair quiet.
Arnold Schwarzenegger’s party of conservative “family values” begs the question, “Who needs to be a liberal?”
