What a powerful magnet for affirmation junkies the political arena is, especially in the age of cable television, social media and the permanent campaign, which enables the needy, and maybe favors them as well. They suffer its mortifications most willingly, if they suffer at all. It’s not difficult to drop to bended knee when you’re a serial romancer and you live to hear people accept your proposals and tell you you’re the one.

That yearning is palpable in Mark Sanford, now groveling for a second chance and a ticket to Congress. It defined John Edwards. And in their cases, as in Weiner’s, it expressed itself not just in public ambitions but in private transgressions. What led them to run and what led them to stray were to some extent the same hunger. The same hormone.

THAT’S true, too, of Bill Clinton, who made a startling comment in an interview with Stephen Colbert last week. Colbert asked the two-term former president, a globe-trotting megacelebrity with stratospheric approval ratings, why he doesn’t tweet.

Clinton’s answer?

That he’s “sort of insecure.” That he might not get any response. If a tweet falls in cyberspace and no one acknowledges it, did it really make the rounds?