Why Politicians’ Wives Dread Their Husbands Running for President
April 27, 2011
by Anita Finlay ("Ani")
|The opinions expressed herein are those of the author, and not necessarily those of The New Agenda.
2002 Spy Magazine Cover of Hillary Clinton entitled Hillary's Big Secret. Image from WomenAmericans.com. Find out more about attacks on Hillary Clinton below the fold.
In an era of the 24-7 news cycle and no-holds-barred opposition research, where nearly everything about a candidate’s personal and family life is considered fair game, the spouse’s acquiescence to a campaign has itself become a news event.
On Monday, Governor Barbour shocked many in his party when he declared he had decided against running.
Cheri Daniels, wife of Indiana’s governor Mitch Daniels seems likewise mortified at the prospect of her husband getting into the 2012 Presidential race. Ms. Ball’s article offers a clear reason why:
A blockbuster chronicle of the 2008 campaign, “Game Change,” might end up influencing a whole new generation of prospective campaign spouses — and not in a positive way. Its brutal depiction of Elizabeth Edwards was the worst-case scenario for the political wife, who surely could not do worse than be described in print as “an abusive, intrusive, paranoid, condescending crazy woman” (not that John Edwards came across well, either).
In addition to scathing criticism of Elizabeth Edwards’s supposedly dictatorial involvement in the campaign, the book told the story of John Edwards’s affair and the couple’s disintegration in excruciating detail. In one scene, Elizabeth Edwards tears open her blouse and shouts, “Look at me!” during a screaming fight at an airport.
In February, just a few weeks before South Dakota Sen. John Thune announced he would not seek the presidency, he told Politico that his wife Kimberley had read the book and didn’t like what she saw.
Who would? Beyond the non-stop news cycle, another worry is the growing power of the blogosphere, where a relentless whipping of the opposition by vitriolic websites on both sides is offered with frightening regularity. While the internet faces critique from major news outlets as to its lack of responsibility or journalistic ethics, mainstream media has betrayed itself and all of us by focusing on cackles and pantsuits, cleavage, wardrobe allowances and questionably sourced backroom gossip and sniping.
Jeri Thompson (wife of former Senator Fred Thomson) recalled “being followed by a video tracker from a primary opponent’s campaign.” Everyone is looking to capture that gotcha moment, the unflattering photo, the fight between political spouses, the “soppy and bitchy behavior” the “diva”, the “slut,” the “Stepford wife,” the “moron,” the “witch,” the “hag,” the “ball buster,” the “angry black woman” — any excuse to attach a crude and demeaning label such as these already bestowed upon female candidates or candidate’s wives from Hillary to Palin to Cindy McCain to Elizabeth Edwards to Michelle Obama.
As Ms. Ball points out, at one time candidate’s wives were off limits. Think Kitty Dukakis and Betty Ford. No more. Even a candidate’s kids are fair game. Look at the way Sarah Palin’s children have been treated by the media. Just last week, a mini scandal unfolded when the popular D.C. blog Wonkette wrote a tasteless and horrifying piece insulting Ms. Palin’s three-year old Down Syndrome son, Trig.
Business Insider recounted one of author Jack Stuef’s statements. Responding to what Trig was dreaming about, Stuef offered:
“What’s he dreaming about? Nothing. He’s retarded.”
The only good news is that thirty advertisers have pulled out of the website as a result of the calls and complaints of those who discovered Stuef’s crude rant. Among many other degrading comments, the piece accused Palin of using her son as a political prop. Yet if she left him at home, she would be accused of being a horrible mother or of being ashamed to let her son be seen. When you wish to condemn someone, you can find any number of reasons to do it, fair or not.
Photographs of Trig Palin have also been twisted, manipulated and circulated widely on the internet. Several powerful bloggers and TV commentators, Andrew Sullivan chief among them, have obsessed publicly and repeatedly that Trig is not Sarah Palin’s child but the product of her husband Todd Palin’s incest upon his teenaged daughter Bristol.
This has nothing to do with politics or policy – this is terrorism; a warning to sit down and shut up.
Any political wives looking at the disgraceful treatment of a politician’s family and an innocent child – or recalling Elizabeth Edward’s troubled marriage or illness being made public – have to look on in fear and wonder how they or their children will now become a target of the same kind of vitriol if they dare to step into the limelight.
Just ask Chelsea Clinton how she felt when informed by MSNBC’s David Shuster that her parents were “pimping her out,” or how she reacted listening to her mother being called every dirty name in the book on national television – not to mention the appalling and often pornographic images of Hillary Clinton that went viral. Visit a website called WomenAmericans.com if you want to view a hideous catalog of these manipulated photos of her that began to accumulate well before she was ever a presidential candidate.
I am sure that the wives of Barbour, Thune, Daniels and others have likewise not missed how a woman – whether a female candidate or a male candidate’s wife – is graded and degraded for every pound on her behind, every fashion choice, every statement – not to mention the sound of her voice.
It is no wonder why an educated and outspoken professional woman like First Lady Michelle Obama has been homogenized into a fashion icon and 50s housewife in sweater sets and Laura Brady type flats. When she was first in the public eye, she was referred to as “the closer” – then she was referred to as “emasculating” – suddenly, there was no more “closing.” Further, MSNBC’s Chris Matthews, Vanity Fair’s Chris Hitchen’s and the UK Telegraph’s James Delingpole were but a few of the commentators who were wont to project the inconvenient and perceived negative qualities of Barack Obama onto his wife. Michelle Obama was in the main hidden from view for the latter part of her husband’s campaign.
Six months after her husband became President, Mrs. Obama declared her intention to get more heavily involved in the healthcare debate and to have a more prominent role in helping to sell her husband’s plan. That last for five minutes. Shortly thereafter, we were back to her being defined as a fashion plate, planting a victory garden and visiting military families. A woman perceived as too much in authority still makes society uncomfortable. Yet we do feel comfortable judging her every move and choice, projecting a cookie cutter ideal onto her that no one could possibly live up to.
According to Ms. Ball, a woman is now expected to offer a readiness and enthusiasm in hitting the trail with and for her husband, actively campaigning for him, yet we don’t want her to stray too far from the bounds of the stereotypical feminine role. In other words, hit the mark from a thousand yards out.
And what has happened to us as a society that misogyny has once again become cool and rules of civility no longer apply? The watchdogs are meek indeed, if they exist at all. We must rely on ourselves to speak out because the “ombudsmen” are often more inclined to soft pedal and excuse rather than indict.
Instant and constant access have not given us better quality news, just more excuses to sensationalize or obfuscate a politician’s every move. While it in understandable that a voting public should want to know a candidate’s family and have some understanding of the influence of those close to him or her, the focus on every gesture that would be otherwise private has cost us.
We have traded the factual for the sensational, the vital for the prurient – and political wives are watching and wondering…do I really want put my family through all this?
Oy – is this really what it has come to? That things have gotten so bad for women in the public eye, that now wives don’t want to be involved. Simply terrible!
“A woman perceived as too much in authority still makes society uncomfortable. Yet we do feel comfortable judging her every move and choice, projecting a cookie cutter ideal onto her that no one could possibly live up to.”
Again, don’t project the values of the morons who work in Corporate Media with the values of American People. No one purposefully signs up for the channels of “news” that practice this sexist crap. People sign up to rent a connection to the TV cable. The media companies gate keep all new content producers out of the market. They gate keep all people and all ideas who don’t match them out of the market. Then having zero competition they produce a bunch of sexist half composted bull $h!t and force feed it into our homes and then extort payment for channels you never wanted and find idiotically offensive, then blame the repulsiveness on “The People”. Well BS. What is on TV is a reflection of the narrow group of men who own the system and in no way reflects American Values.
Unfortunately, it is a mix of both — the media does forcefeed us values that many of us may not share, but from my own experiences during the 2008 campaign and hearing and reading the opinions of so many — the sexist crap being spewed is not a one way street. I wish I could say that it were. In 2008 for example, when Hillary was being excoriated and called a vaginal American and bitch on national tv, there was no national outcry — if there were, this would have stopped before it had a chance to reach the fever pitch that it did.
Those of us who did complain found our complaints fell on deaf ears.
This will continue until enough people rise up to protest the exhibitions of sex based hate that still exist in this country. I take your point and was not implying that everyone feels a certain way — just enought to allow all of this to continue.
Well done, Ani!
Politics are like chess,if you can’t get the king you get the queen. The political wives are supposed to be a combination of Monroe, Clara Barton, Madame Curie, and Martha Stewart and still not outshine their husbands.
And in regards to Elizabeth Edwards, what did those idiots who wrote “Game Change” think she was supposed to do? Tell Rielle or whatever her manufactured name is “Here take John for a roll in the hay and have him back at 5 because we have a photo opp?” And then smile sweetly?
“In 2008 for example, when Hillary was being excoriated and called a vaginal American and bitch on national tv, there was no national outcry — if there were, this would have stopped before it had a chance to reach the fever pitch that it did.
Those of us who did complain found our complaints fell on deaf ears.”
The thing is there is no way we would know if there was a national outcry or not, we do know that the “news” channels have been losing viewers and they didn’t have that many viewers to start with. Americans do not have consumer rights when it comes to media. If you find the sexist tone of a channel repulsive you should be able to inform Corporate Media of your feelings by canceling your subscription to the channel. But that is not possible, you either cancel your cable hook up, which in many places means you can’t get clear reception on any channel or you accept the Media Cartels mandatory subscription to only their advertising venues aka channels. I complained, you complained, our friends complained but Corporate Media doesn’t care because they don’t have to. Also judging from the published comments at “News” sites like CNN, MSNBC etc “everyone” agreed with the sexist stories they were publishing. Well that is not the case, they censor the comments that are published so that only the ones that support their attitudes are published. I know this because my co workers and I would call out sexist articles in the comments sections and none of us ever got a comment published. In fact they seem to block comments by address. Technology is evolving so that Media can’t force feed packages of garbage to suckers and Media companies will have to start being responsive to consumers or their profits will evaporate (which is all they care about). But a good deal of sexism could be eliminated by pushing along the destruction of the current TV business model.
I actually wrote a book on the conniving behavior of corporate media vis a vis the issue of sexism in our last two elections. It takes a great deal for those of us who are shouting from the highest hill to have our complaints make a dent because of the methods you state above.
Certainly vertical ownership of uber companies is part of the problem. Even if you devastate one of their bottom lines (i.e., tv station, newspaper), it is a relatively small portion of their entire holdings, so they don’t much care. And yes, I remember the media censorship — I was writing and submitting articles to many papers constantly. If they did not fit into the narrative they were promoting (i.e. — if they were not negative about Hillary), there was no way they were going to get published.
What is really sad is evidently Corporate Media also own our Congress, or else our Congress men are just dumber than a box full of rocks, perhaps both. They should be investigating monopoly control, slanted news, “news” blurbs that are actually paid advertisements, corrupt regulators. And Congress should be looking out for the common good and consumer rights. They should put a stop to force feeding advertising venues/channels and gate keeping out new voices and the fact that women have no authentic voice in media. But no, Congress is apparently content to take their pay offs, spout dogmatic mantras written for them by the Media Cartel and sell out The People and our culture.
what can be done?
not everyone wants to loose all TV. there are campaigns promoting TV free weeks, such as the campaign for commercial free childhood CCFC. should we have certain days or weeks to be TV and media free for respect of women?
WASHINGTON Two-time Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards whose wife Elizabeth has incurable cancer has admitted to an extramarital affair that he had denied for almost a year.The admission by the former North Carolina senator in an interview yesterday with ABCs Nightline came after The National Enquirer ran stories detailing the affair with a 42-year-old filmmaker Rielle Hunter.Edwards dismissed the stories as tabloid trash as recently as last month.He denied yesterday he is the father of Hunters child born Feb. A married former campaign aide has come forward to say he fathered the child.The Enquirer however found Edwards visiting Hunter and her baby at the Beverly Hills Hilton just last month a fact the 2004 vice-presidential candidate acknowledged in the Nightline interview.He repeatedly stressed that his wifes breast cancer first diagnosed in 2004 was in remission while he was having the affair.Elizabeth Edwards first revealed her cancer had returned and spread to her bones in March 2007. In a statement yesterday Edwards said he was ashamed of his behaviour.In the course of several campaigns I started to believe that I was special and became increasingly egocentric and narcissistic.If you want to beat me up feel free.
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