wenBLOG

One of the things I like most about the early stages of a presidential campaign cycle is the amount of effort candidates make to be ubiquitous.  It’s so important for candidates to develop name identification well before the actual campaign season begins that they practically fall over themselves to be in the public eye.  And while the frontrunners try to balance their accessibility with a level of mystique (being too available is almost a bigger sin than not being available enough) those at the bottom of the publicity pyramid will do whatever is necessary to reach out to voters.

Candidates like Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, John McCain and Rudy Giuliani currently are enjoying their larger than life perches at the top of the food chain and can pick and choose where they’re seen and by whom.  Candidates like them are the campaign - what they stand for and whom they rely on mean less to voters at this stage than their rock star personas.  Tell people in any community that one of the big four are coming town and I can guarantee that they’ll draw as many people as the room will hold.  But what about the rest of the candidate caravan?

To get above the crowd of also-rans and to reach the holy grail plateau of presidential frontrunners, candidates at the lower echelons have to show something more, and that’s where the candidate’s spouse comes into play.

The dynamic of the candidate’s spouse is two-fold.  In the beginning,  a frontrunner’s spouse is seldom seen because they’re not necessary - the candidate’s aura alone carries them and the spouse does nothing but muddy the waters.  It’s back in the pack that a candidate’s spouse can make all of the difference - either good or bad.

The need for lesser known candidates to be everywhere means that they cannot be everywhere.  Who better to represent that candidate in their absence than the person closest to them.  In the 1992 presidential campaign, it was the then Hillary Rodham-Clinton that personified her husband to the far corners of New Hampshire.  While Bill was back in Arkansas tending to the governor’s office, it was Hillary that attended the Gobbler’s Knob Democratic Club meetings.  Regardless of what people think of her today, Hillary carried her husband’s proxy long before the media and its glaring attention showed up and Granite Staters liked what they saw in the Arkansas first lady.  She was a professional woman and a mom, and she loved her husband (remember this was before Jennifer Flowers and the klieg lights of 60 Minutes).  She fertilized the way for Bill and it’s likely that it was her early hard work that allowed his campaign to weather the storm.

In 2004 it was Elizabeth Edwards who helped establish her husband John in the hearts and minds of Iowans.  So much so that today she is considered to be one the most liked and respected people by average Iowans.  Again, the value of a quality spouse for a candidate who is stretched thin cannot be underestimated.

Contrast the good with the bad.

How important is a quality spouse in a campaign?  Two more examples from the 2004 race:

It was December 2003 and Howard Dean was sliding.  His meteoric leap to the front of the pack thanks to the internet and Joe Trippi was starting to diminish and the campaign needed some new fuel for the fire.  In steps Howard’s physician wife Judith Steinberg Dean - oops!  Dr. Steinberg while a lovely lady and competent in her job flopped miserably.  Although blaming the wife for Howard Dean’s failure is unfair, it does help to illustrate how helpful she could have been had she been active early on.

Remember what I said before about the importance of a candidate’s spouse being two-fold?  Once the candidate is established as the frontrunner or the nominee, it becomes the spouse’s job to stay in the background and reinforce their partner’s agenda.  In 2004 Laura Bush travelled around the country, gave positive speeches and said nice things.  She didn’t want the spotlight, but she’s grown in her job as first lady and she delivered with great clarity and posh.  She softened her husband for voters and reinforced his humanity.  On the other hand, if their was one thing that John Kerry could point to (beyond his own failures which were many though still not enough to stop him from winning the Democratic nomimation) that cost him the election in November, it was his wife Theresa Heinz.  Talk about a train wreck.

Finally, a recent stunt by Conman Dennis Kucinich’s wife Elizabeth to lash back at WCPN radio for a guest’s less than flattering characterization of her husband not only proves that she’s a liability, but also that her husband may have chosen badly when deciding on his personal and political stablemate.  If he can’t pick a wife, how the hell can people take him seriously in picking a running mate or a cabinet.

Oh my God!  Did I just mention the potentiality of Kucinich actually choosing a Vice President and cabinet, sorry… bad joke.

At the end of the day, if someone is going to make it out of the pack and move to the front of the line, it will be their spouse that gets them there.