Thin skinned...

February 7, 2012: The first piece of political advice I ever received was as true eighteen years ago as it is today; once you decide to knock on the door, you better have thick skin.

Politics is unfair, it's unwieldy, it's unpredictable. More importantly it can get personal really fast. Unless you're completely removed from reality, you acknowledge and accept these risks when you throw your hat in the ring.

In 1998 while running for the State House in a Republican Primary, my opponent told the Anchorage Daily News I had been kicked out of college for gambling. I went to college in Salem, Oregon. What the hell would I be gambling on? The day when the incessant, pounding rain would finally end?

Regardless, due to the accusation I was forced to do the dance with Lisa Demer at the ADN, by giving the college a blanket authorization to provide her with any information requested.

The accusation was proven false. Two months later I won the primary.

Politics is ugly. Facts are sometimes distorted, lives are sometimes scrutinized and lifestyles can easily become fodder for public debate. But look on the bright side, it's only been this way forever. 

Long since Brutus shivved Caesar on the floor of the Roman Senate, campaigns have been bringing out both the best and the worst from those aspiring for political greatness. In 1800, John Adams' wife lamented that the race between her husband and Thomas Jefferson was poison enough to "ruin and corrupt the minds and morals of the best people in the world." 

Some are already predicting that the 2012 election season will be the worst.

But while we can blame Jefferson for helping establishing the precedent for negative American political campaigns, we must thank him for his passionate defense of the free press to cover and comment on such campaigns.

"Where the press is free and every man able to read, all is safe," Jefferson was famous for saying. 

Any politician should understand this, especially those who campaign by pretending to channel the founding fathers.  

So last week, there I sat in a downtown Anchorage law office being deposed about the very issue that Jefferson held so dear; a free press.

The deposition wasn't confidential. In fact it was a front page story in the Fairbanks Daily News Miner on Friday. So you don't have to take my word for it when I say that the deposition transcript shows exactly why when asked if he'd rather have free government or free press, Jefferson chose the free press.

During the three hour deposition I was repeatedly asked questions that had absolutely no relevance to the case being litigated.