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The Smart Politician's Guide To Avoiding Scandal

Politics may be show business for ugly people, but you don't have to be ugly about it yourself.

It's become a cliche to describe the endless series of Republican presidential debates as a reality show. But lately a lot of politicians have been acting as though they were looking to secure a spot on the "now trending" lists of Internet search engines.

Secretly donating sperm to lesbians in New Zealand? Seriously?

The truth is, if you're a politician, you don't have to engage in any kind of wild or outlandish behavior to become the talk of the Internet and cable news. People are already prepared to think the worst of you, so any minor indiscretion is likely to turn you into a laughingstock.

That's why you have to be careful. There are a lot of land mines and social pitfalls you have to avoid.

To spare politicians further embarrassment, we have prepared this list of do's and, mainly, don'ts. The downsides are simply too great.

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Alan Greenblatt has been covering politics and government in Washington and around the country for 20 years. He came to NPR as a digital reporter in 2010, writing about a wide range of topics, including elections, housing economics, natural disasters and same-sex marriage.
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