The sins of youth as a PR strategy?

In a newspaper interview a few days ago, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk admitted that he had smoked marihuana when he was younger. Talking to Agnieszka Skopińska, Eryk Mistewicz, a political adviser, says the confession is a PR strategy thought up by Tusk's advisers: "This is a typical 'elevator story,' or in other words the kind of story about a politician that is delivered every morning to wake people up and increase their interest in politics. This is how politics works in most Western democracies today. Ideological confrontations, the past and political classics are not important here. ... The voters do not want politicians who have no weaknesses. They want real people of flesh and blood who have had experiences, which makes them more predictable. So when a politician has battled and won against alcoholism, it inspires respect. People like that kind of story."

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