I'm a Republican, just to give you the perspective I'm coming from here. That being said, I can spot bad sales jobs when they come from both sides of the political aisle.
Larry Craig, the Republican Senator from Idaho, is in hot water because of pleading guilty to a misdemeanor charge after being arrested in a Minneapolis airport by an undercover policeman. Apparently, he was arrested after allegedly tapping his foot in "code" that told the undercover officer he was interested in soliciting sex.
My focus is not the incident itself. It's what Larry Craig did afterwards.
He pleaded guilty. Let's say it was bad legal advice, or just a bad knee-jerk reaction to getting arrested and being accused of that. Whatever the case, its pretty hard to come back after pleading guilty and try and sell your constituants on your innocence.
It's a little like the Chinese toy company coming back and holding a press conference tomorrow, saying "Yes, our CEO committed suicide over the fact that we were painting the toys with lead and then shipping them to your kids in the U.S., and we agreed with the recall. But you know what? We didn't do anything wrong or unethical. We are NOT producing dangerous toys."
You'd be scratching your head, right? Of course you would.
Senator Craig is done as a politician, especially since he is from a conservative state like Idaho (it would be a different story if he were a liberal from San Francisco...heck, he'd touted as a "bold progressive" who wasn't afraid to push the social norms). Much of the blame lies at his feet for not being truthful from the beginning, and pleading guilty to a crime that he now says he didn't commit.
From start to finish, a really bad sales job that you can learn from as a sales professional.
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