Waterloo Cedar Falls Courier, IA
04-14-07
Candidate spouses play key role
y SEAN J. MILLER
For Courier Lee News Service
DES MOINES --- Elizabeth Edwards' recent announcement that her cancer has
returned and sometimes will pull her off the campaign trail to seek treatment
brought a renewed focus on the role of the political spouse.
"There's a long history of wives campaigning for their husbands," said Dianne
Bystrom, the director of the Carrie Chapman Catt Center for Women and
Politics at Iowa State University. Political spouses raise money, speak at
events in the candidate’s absence, and in joint appearances, they can
personalize their husbands.
"The public expects the candidate's wife to be on the campaign trail," Bystrom
said. The expectations for a political spouse are higher during a presidential
campaign, she adds, "because (the spouse) really has a role to play in the
administration."
Bystrom, who studies women's roles in politics, said voters would forgive a
spouse's absence from the campaign trail for illness but "they're less forgiving if
the spouse says 'I have a full-time job and can't be bothered to campaign.'"
Former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean's wife, Judith Steinberg Dean, maintained
her medical practice while her husband campaigned for president in 2004. In
January 2004, during one of her few public interviews, she told ABC News' Diane
Sawyer, " think, if I can help him, I will, and that doesn't mean he's going to
disrupt my life, disrupt my patients, my son."
Dean eventually lost the Democratic nomination to Sen. John Kerry.
Some of this presidential cycle's political spouses also have expressed
reluctance to campaign.
Barack Obama's wife, Michelle, has made several public appearances with her
husband since he started campaigning for the Democratic presidential
nomination. But in a Feb. 13 interview with "60 Minutes" she said she was
reluctant to let her husband run because political campaigns make her feel like a
single mother.
Bystrom said voters notice a wife's absence from the campaign trail, and that’s
why many political spouses choose to campaign full time.
Christie Vilsack campaigned full time for her husband during his two races for
governor, and his short-lived presidential campaign. "Our relationship has always
been a partnership," she said in a recent interview. "We're in this together. It's a
family deal."
Other candidates follow the same model.
Ann Romney, whose husband, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, is
running for the Republican presidential nomination, also is campaigning full time.
In a recent phone interview, Ann Romney said that she wants to familiarize
voters with her husband's personal side.
"I see myself as talking about the character and quality of my husband," she said.
"People look at his record, but I can be there next to him saying 'Yeah, but he
has amazing integrity and has family values.'"
Ann Romney was politically active while her husband served four years as
governor. She successfully lobbied the Massachusetts State House to provide
funding to improve people with disabilities’ access to public transit, she said.
During the campaign, however, she leaves policy decisions to her husband, she
said.
"I could have a window or an ear, but I'm not going to be behind him saying, 'Do
this.' He does what he thinks is right, bottom line."
Bystrom said it is challenging for campaigns to balance the role of the
candidate's spouse.
A wife "can’t overshadow her husband," Bystrom said. "They can’t be seen as
replacing the spouse. It makes the candidate look weak.
"You heard that sometimes with Hillary Rodham Clinton while Bill (Clinton) was
running," she said. "Research shows voters vote for the candidate, not the
spouse. Voters don't like the two-for-one."