It is that time again.  Every four years the chosen candidates from each political party take to our television screens and county fairs, walk onto debate stages, and fly across the country repeatedly in order to convince voters that he (or occasionally she) should be the president of the United States.

I don’t really discuss politics on this blog and have no intention of starting, but there was a moment this week when politics and crime intersected.  (I know . . . some would say that happens every day.)

Peter Schwartz apparently is quite passionate about President Barack Obama and Governor Mitt Romney and what each man brings to the Oval Office.  Unfortunately, this passion turned violent when he slapped his wife’s face during a political argument on Tuesday night.  Schwartz told Broward County Judge John “Jay” Hurley that his wife was not pleased with his support for Romney and said she did not like him anymore.  Schwartz’s wife, twenty-eight years his junior, told him that his Republican leanings reminded her of her mother.

The wife refused to file a complaint, but Schwartz was arrested anyway.  He is allowed only telephone contact with his wife and he must stay at least 500 feet from her until this matter is resolved.

Violence inflicted by a husband onto his wife is certainly never acceptable.  The seemingly primal instinct to lash out in violence is one that sometimes, unfortunately, requires an intervention by the legal system.   However, I’m not so sure what the result will be here.  Earlier this year, the judge in the case ordered a man accused of domestic violence to take his wife out to dinner and buy her flowers.  Not sure if that is a good long-term solution.  We’ll see what happens this time.

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