Doug Emhoff exhorted voters on social media to consider that "decency is on the ballot." Does it matter if Emhoff has indecency on the record from years past in an election where his wife runs for president? Should it?

One way or the other, the conversation will take place whether we like it or not. The Daily Mail dug into Emhoff's past and discovered that his first marriage ended when he cheated on his wife with a teacher at the private school that their children attended. The report dropped on Saturday, interestingly, normally seen as a propitious time to drop unpleasant news:

Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff cheated on his first wife Kerstin with the blonde nanny, who also taught at their children’s pricey private school. ...

A close friend with direct knowledge of the affair and pregnancy told DailyMail.com that Naylor did not keep the child – though her social media shows a video of a mysterious baby girl named Brook in 2009, the year the baby would have been born.

Another  friend, Stacey Brooks, who mothered twin boys around the same time as Naylor was expecting, also did not deny any of the claims – but said she would not divulge further information without Naylor’s permission.

The incendiary news is said to be causing panic in Harris’s campaign, just as she has overtaken Donald Trump in several polls and as she ramps up her final push to win over voters in November.

Apparently the campaign has waited for this to emerge since August 2020. Harris disclosed this to Biden's team at that time, worried that someone may dig into Emhoff's history. As it turned out, no one did until now, when Harris suddenly vaulted to the top of the ticket by anointment and the oppo research might mean something. Emhoff immediately reached out to CNN to do some quick damage control:

“During my first marriage, Kerstin and I went through some tough times on account of my actions. I took responsibility, and in the years since, we worked through things as a family and have come out stronger on the other side,” Emhoff said in a statement provided exclusively to CNN. ...

The relationship and the circumstances around it were known four years ago to Joe Biden’s vetting committee as Harris was herself going through the running mate process before being picked for the ticket, a person familiar with the conversations told CNN. The person also said that Emhoff had told Harris about the affair well before they got married.

The relationship ended years before Emhoff began dating Harris.

The Daily Mail reported that the woman became pregnant and that, according to a close friend, she “did not keep the child.” 

That certainly has tongues wagging. Emhoff has also been on social media to condemn the Dobbs ruling that overturned Roe and sent the issue of abortion back to the states. Now some wonder if Emhoff has personal experience in the matter, or whether "did not keep the child" means adoption instead. 

So what should we make of this? All of this is perhaps not quite ancient history, but it's far enough in the past to have occurred in the Bush 43 administration. Emhoff's first marriage ended in 2008 after this affair took place and before he met Kamala Harris, whom he married in 2014. If an abortion took place, it is at least consistent with his public political positions and those of his wife. And Emhoff isn't the candidate anyway, nor was Kamala involved in the divorce or the affair.

Normally, I'd suggest that dirt on spouses is out of bounds in a political campaign. Of course, I would have argued that in 2016 too, when nudes from Melania Trump's modeling career circa 1995 were made into a campaign ad. In that case, though, the ads came from an anti-Trump Republican super-PAC during the primary, although the issue percolated all through the campaign and into Trump's presidency. (Small wonder Mrs. Trump was reportedly not exactly thrilled to have to campaign again in this cycle.) The New York Post later turned the photos into a front-page story called "The Ogle Office," with a nude Melania and a couple of tiny stars strategically placed. The sub-head promised, "You've never seen a potential First Lady like this!"

In the end, that didn't matter to voters, and perhaps not even one single voter. Few if any will care about an affair the current Second Gentleman had two decades ago either, one that didn't even involve his current wife and the Anointed Nominee for president. It's certainly salacious, and it's certainly going to embarrass the Emhoff and Harris families. It might have made life easier had they leaked this in 2019 and let the media take the sting out of it rather than sitting on it this long, but it's almost certainly not going to matter. Voters vote for the top of the ticket, not the running mate nor for or against the spouse of either candidate.

Republicans have plenty to say about Harris and the Biden-Harris record. This is just a momentary distraction and not worth spending much time discussing or debating -- other than a lesson in poor strategic campaign planning. 

Addendum: This seems more likely to create concern. While married to Harris and while she served in the US Senate, Emhoff's lobbying firm had some interesting clients (via Power Line):

DLA Piper was good to the Emhoff-Harris family with the family taking home $2.7 million in 2019 and $1.2 million in 2020. “To aspire to create wealth is a good thing as far as I’m concerned. If that is what one chooses. I, on the other hand, have chosen to live a life of public service,’ Kamala had claimed. But the “life of public service” led to her husband’s role at DLA Piper.

And two DLA Piper clients are connected to a flashpoint in Kamala’s foreign policy. ...

DLA Piper not only represented Qatar through its state-owned Al Jazeera terrorist propaganda network, but has an office there as part of the Qatar Financial Centre Branch of DLA Piper Middle East. Qatar harbors Hamas and funded it along with other Islamic terrorist groups.

The enemy terrorist outlet hired DLA Piper around the same time that some members of Congress had asked why Al Jazeera was not complying with the Foreign Agents Registration Act and why the Department of Justice had failed to bring the Qatari operation into compliance.

This occurred in 2019 when Emhoff was still a partner at DLA Piper, though he was not involved with that particular case, that was part of a relationship with Qatar that predated his time there.

DLA Piper however also entered into an agreement with the Palestine Monetary Authority for $600,000 to “strengthen its relationship with the American government” signed with PMA boss Jihad Al Wazir. As of 2019, DLA Piper was still representing the ‘banking arm of the PLO and sending out invitations to members of Congress to meet with then PMA head Azzam Shawwa. By 2021, the PMA had become DLA Piper’s largest foreign principal.

This seems a lot more on target than an affair from nearly twenty years ago. Let's get some answers on these issues.