I missed this crapfight, and that sounds like a good thing. What happened?
A number of users used the endorsement page to disendorse candidates. Some of the disendorsements were in fact personal attacks. Several people tried to remove the disendorsements from the endorsement page - this led to accusations of censoring, cabalism, and election fraud. Lots of fun all round ;-)
A certain thickness of skin would pretty much be a requirement for the job.
My thoughts exactly. When you stand for election you do put yourself in the firing line. But as an arbitrator you are going to piss off a certain class of editor. Namely the people up before the AC. These people are somewhat likely to be the sort to be, how shall I put it? - vocal in condemnation of you. You need to be able to take, insults and abuse in order to be an arbiter.
Theresa