2004-1-20 7:16 p.m.
Next Time, Use More Candidate Softener
Debra Saunders, our local "conservative" columnist (remember, this is San Francisco, so this term is relative -- in your town, she'd probably be the wild-eyed liberal) has finally written something I agree with.
Howard Dean's wife, Dr. Judith Steinberg (or Judy Dean, depending on who you ask), has largely stayed out of his presidential campaign. This weekend they trotted her out for a five-sentence speech at the Iowa caucuses, in a move that was widely reported as an attempt to "soften" Dean's image.
A few days before this rushed public appearance, Maureen Dowd presumed to advise the Deans on a "healthy political marriage" in her column in the New York Times.
Noting the Deans' "unusual" relationship in the world of politics, Dowd describes the following "startling" photo that was on the front page of her paper last week:
In worn jeans and old sneakers, the shy and retiring Dr. Judith Steinberg Dean looked like a crunchy Vermont hippie, blithely uncoiffed, unadorned, unstyled and unconcerned about not being at her husband's side -- the anti-Laura. You could easily imagine the din of Rush Limbaugh and Co. demonizing her as a counterculture fem-lib role model for the blue states.
Hello -- she's the first lady of Vermont. What did you expect?
And here's where Dowd rrrrreaches for a clue, only to find it just outside her grasp: Many women cheered Judy Steinberg as a relief and a breakthrough. Why should she have to feign subservience in 2003, or compromise as Hillary Rodham and Teresa Heinz did when they took their husbands' names? But many political analysts said that just as the remote technocrat Michael Dukakis needed Kitty around to warm him up, the emotionally chilly Howard Dean could benefit from the presence of someone who could illuminate his softer side. So far he has generated a lot of heat but little warmth.
In other words, maybe women shouldn't have to do the fawning, cooing political wife dance -- unless their husbands are behind in the polls and could use a little "warmth."
Saunders rightly rips on Dowd and others for criticizing the Deans for not hitting the campaign trail together, and that just showing up wouldn't be considered enough:
By the time the campaign machinery is through with The Little Woman, it will have cranked out a regular Democratic Stepford wife -- face-peeled, pearl-accessoried, blow-dried and career-suited.
Let's take this a step further, though: what's up with that "softening" bit anyway?
Apparently received political wisdom has it that simply putting a candidate within proximity of a lawfully wedded wife gives him "warmth" and lends him moral authority. But it goes unsaid that having a loving heterosexual marriage of long standing that produced 2.3 kids isn't enough. She still has to be the right kind of wife with the right kind of look, the right name and the right opinions, and any signs that she doesn't fit the mold (as no real person can) will be ferreted out ruthlessly by a critical and unforgiving press and political establishment. No wonder Dean's wife wants nothing to do with this -- she can't possibly win. And furthermore, why is it assumed that she should want to do this?
Why is it that in 2004 it's still expected that First Ladies to be "helpmeets," as Dowd put it: dropping everything (including staying home with a high-school aged child) to be at the candidate's side, changing her name to his, draping herself on his arm and laughing at his dumb jokes on the podium? Why must a wife erase her own political beliefs and pretend to be in total agreement with her husband, as Laura Bush has reportedly done? Why should it be noteworthy (as NPR apparently felt it was) that Dr. Steinberg said that she might "need help" with coordinating White House events, as if she wouldn't have an army of skilled staff at her disposal? It's not like Howard would be giving her a phone call from the Oval Office at 2 PM, saying he'd be bringing a 26-member delegation from Burundi home tonight and could she make that tuna casserole that was such a hit at the last state dinner?
And why is it that nobody but nobody questions that having a political clone wife doing the right political wifey things is the only way to get elected? Dean's campaign has -- up until now -- been all about listening to real people, and was the only candidate who was not inclined to buy into the wisdom of the political establishment. This real person is deeply disappointed that Dean now thinks it's ok to trot his wife around stage like a show pony, and it's calling into question a lot of the "People Powered Howard" rhetoric for me.
This is a very bad way to win the "cares about integrity" vote. For shame.