The Candidate's Wife Still Plays a Key Role

The role of a presidential candidate's wife has come into question on the campaign trail.

Should she tag along on the hustings, looking up adoringly at her husband, as many have in the past as part of a ritual?

Or should she do her own thing?

I'd like to believe we have reached the point where a politician's wife can follow her own star. Nonetheless, it seems that her presence on the campaign is a political must and that her absence on the stump is usually noted. Like it or not, wives are expected to help win votes for their husbands.

Some wives have deviated at times from the party line to express their own views on controversial subjects -- but not often and usually at a cost. Betty Ford was once asked how she would react if her daughter Susan had a love affair.

"I wouldn't be a bit surprised," she quipped. President Gerald Ford took it all in stride but, revving up for election in 1976, he joked that he thought his wife's reply would cost him 150,000 votes among Republican conservatives.

Laura Bush indicated once during the 2000 campaign that she favored "choice" -- as in abortion rights -- but she never again took a public stand on the issue.

The wives usually stay on the husband's message when they are out campaigning.

The conventional wisdom is that potential voters like to see the wife -- someday it may be a husband -- of a presidential candidate and to size her up.

People like to fancy marital bliss in political couples and they apparently prefer a wife who doesn't seem too dominant, too ambitious.

The wives of today's candidates -- feminist, educated women with professional careers -- do not lend themselves to the stereotypes of the past.

Much was made of the fact that Dr. Judith Steinberg, a physician, and wife for 23 years of Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean, was not visible on the campaign trail for most of his early campaign.

She was busy with her patients in Vermont.

Her husband understood and accepted her desire to carry on with her work, but the media naturally made a point of her unusual absence.

At one point early in the campaign, Steinberg told an interviewer that her husband "didn't ask me" if he should run for the presidency. Perhaps she assumed that if he won, she would simply continue on with her medical practice, just as she did when he was governor of Vermont.

Another potential first lady, Teresa Heinz Kerry, wife of the Democratic front runner, is outspoken and cuts her own swath as she campaigns beside her husband. Kerry was born in Mozambique and is the widow of the ketchup scion, Sen. John Heinz of Pennsylvania, a Republican. She heads the Heinz Foundation.

There is no question that she would set a new style in the first ladyship if she gets to the White House.

Elizabeth A. Edwards, wife of Sen. John Edwards, D-N.C., is a lawyer, like Hillary Clinton. She quit her law practice in 1996 after their son died in an accident.

In an interview with Cox newspapers last week, she said that she is the "ballast" when her husband gets "downloaded" with too much information from his aides. That's when she tells him "to be himself and not to forget to smile."

She is bright, warm and a relentless handshaker at campaign stops.

Kathy Jordan Sharpton, wife of Al Sharpton, was a former backup singer to James Brown. She also served as a sergeant in the Army, and has two teen-aged daughters.

The remaining candidate, Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, has been divorced for several years. But divorce -- once a potent negative issue -- is no longer a deterrent to winning public office. Twice-elected President Ronald Reagan had been divorced and it did not hurt his political fortunes.

First lady Laura Bush is on the road a lot as a surrogate for her husband and has proved to be a boffo fundraiser, bringing $5 million into the campaign coffers.

In an interview Feb. 7 in The New York Times, she saluted Steinberg for making "the decision that was right for her."

She is immersed in the campaign, defensive about her husband's war policies and military record and influential in his decision-making.

As wives of the contenders, Laura Bush and -- probably -- Teresa Heinz Kerry will present strong contrasts on the campaign trail. This should be a fascinating election campaign.

(Helen Thomas can be reached at 202-263-6400 or at the e-mail address hthomas(at)hearstdc.com).

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