Right Woman
by Gregg Easterbrook
Only at TNR Online
Post date: 07.14.04
Magnetism, down-to-Earth charm, good-lookin', well-spoken, gifted campaigner, the common touch and a special sparkle simultaneously: Edwards sure is going to help the Democratic ticket. Elizabeth Edwards, I mean.
Rightly or wrong, we live in a moment when candidates' wives are subject to considerable scrutiny. (Maybe someday candidates' husbands will be subject to scrutiny in America--Dennis Thatcher experienced that in Britain--but not in 2004.) Betty Ford and Barbara Bush were more popular than Gerald or George. Hillary was the she-devil of the right; surely there were ritual human sacrifices when her secret health-care reform committee met. Nancy Reagan was first dismissed, then grudgingly admired. Dr. Judith Steinberg was roundly denounced by the chattering classes for believing her first duty was to her patients, not to the Howard Dean campaign, though her choice made me wish she was my doctor.
Most focus on candidates' wives falls somewhere on the spectrum between inane and condescending. But it's there nonetheless and must be taken into account: The media and voters have become obsessed with top-of-the-ticket wives, and except for Steinberg, the wives have responded by racing toward the cameras. I could be wrong about this, but I think the wife star of the 2004 campaign will be Mrs. Edwards. If they're not already thinking this, Democratic strategists may soon be pondering ways to get her out front, while getting Teresa Heinz back to foundation headquarters to review grant applications.
Elizabeth Edwards may prove far more appealing to voters than Teresa Heinz, but let's postpone that comparison for a moment and simply consider Mrs. Edwards on her own. She's smart and well-spoken, well versed in the issues, poised in public. She had an impressive professional career--law school, clerk for a federal judge, then law practice--and gave it up to become a traditional mother for the couple's four children. The Ivy League crowd may belittle traditional motherhood, but millions of Americans admire this role. Elizabeth Edwards bore four kids, which is a service to humanity in and of itself, and two are little--the Edwards are the only ones in the race with young children, and cute kids have an inherent charm that will draw voters to the couple's story. Elizabeth Edwards has endured every parent's worst nightmare, the death of a child, Wade, in a car crash at age 16. Family tragedy is among the most potent forces that can enter a person's life; to lose a child is on the short list of the most horrible experiences a human being can have. Mrs. Edwards has faced family tragedy; large numbers of Americans have also faced it; those who can face family tragedy and still get up in the morning are deservedly admired. She'll get such admiration.
Next, and don't chortle, Elizabeth Edwards is overweight but still attractive. There's a huge demographic of Americans who are overweight though still striving to look good: Elizabeth Edwards could become their champion! On the serious side, many women have gone through the life experience of being slender in youth--check the Edwards's wedding-day photo, Elizabeth is a lithe beauty--then simply not being able to keep the pounds off following the double whammy of childbearing followed by child-rearing, which means, oh, 20 years or so without time to exercise. By being an overweight yet still attractive traditional mom, Elizabeth Edwards radiates "I am a real-world person" in a way that none of the other three wives can. (Teresa Heinz inherited spectacular wealth; Lynne Cheney is a policy wonk-novelist; as for Laura Bush, nobody who's been First Lady is real-world any longer.)
Now consider Elizabeth Edwards on political substance. During the Democratic couples' joint "60 Minutes" appearance on Sunday, Mrs. Edwards not only outshone Teresa Heinz by a hefty margin, she might have bested both men, too.
All four were asked something the Democratic ticket will hear a lot this year, a question it must learn to answer: How can Kerry and Edwards, both very wealthy, appreciate the needs of the average person? Senator Kerry went first, and bungled the question. He called reference to his own wealth "the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard in my life," and noted that George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, and Donald Rumsfeld are wealthy, too. The question of Kerry's great wealth is not ridiculous--few Americans have, like him, five homes. This question will be on many voters' minds, and Kerry needs to face this question squarely, not try to dismiss the issue as ridiculous. Nor is noting that his opponents are wealthy an answer: If Kerry were accused of being unethical, he would not reply by saying, "My opponents are also unethical."
It's a mildly bad sign that the Democratic candidate does not yet have a good, ready answer for the Heinz-fortune question. Let me suggest a paraphrase of one, taking into account that numerous public-opinion studies have shown that the majority of voters do not begrudge wealth: "Yes, I am wealthy, and there's nothing wrong with wealth. I'm glad I have a lot of money. My only wish is that everyone had a lot of money. But I understand that most people do not have a lot of money, and as president, I'll be concerned with typical people and what they need to get by, not with other rich people. The rich ought to be able to take care of themselves, without any special favors from the White House."
Next Teresa took a swing at the wealth question, and if her husband hit a bloop single, she whiffed big time. "I find it un-American for people to criticize someone and say they're not deserved for any position whether because they have too much or too little, or because they're black or they're white. That's un-American," she snarled. First, to call someone un-American is the nuclear bomb of U.S. politics: If it's only July and already Teresa Heinz is going nuclear against her critics over a perfectly fair question, this is not an auspicious omen. Second, to pretend that questions about money are like questions about race is wacky. Teresa Heinz is under a lot of pressure to release her income-tax returns, and she is absolutely going to have to do so--the sooner the better, so this matter can be chewed over and then forgotten. If she builds up refusal to answer questions about the money she inherited into some kind of parody of a civil rights issue, she's going to make herself a serious distraction.
Calling her critics un-American on "60 Minutes" came after Teresa acted haughty a few days earlier on "Larry King Live," and that's two bad signs in one week about the potential First Lady. (On "King," she made it sound as if Kerry defers to her in decisions--fine for a marriage, a formula for losing red-state votes in a presidential campaign.) Here's the big worry regarding Teresa Heinz--she's a wonderful person, genuinely public-spirited and genuine in private, but most of her adult life she has received the "Yes, Your Majesty" treatment. Extremely rich people become accustomed to giving instructions and getting their way; the temptation to think, how dare they question me, is powerful. It's only July, and already Teresa Heinz seems on the verge of saying how dare they question me, or the equivalent. This seems like an accident waiting to happen for the Democratic ticket. You can be a good person in your heart, as Teresa Heinz is, and still make yourself look really bad in public. Teresa and her advisors need to look this problem in the eye right away, and perhaps prevent the accident from happening. It's not un-American to note this.
And now back to Elizabeth Edwards. Asked the wealth question, she replied by noting that senators Kerry and Edwards both voted against the tax cut bills that would have brought each large sums of money. She then asked, "Isn't that what we want? A leader who looks at the greater good instead of what simply what benefits the person himself, or the people in his own class or their donors or whatever else you're looking at? These men did what was right for all Americans and it seems to me that's an enormous test of character--whether you're willing to step out and do something against your own self interest."
Amen, amen. Perfect answer. And if you're thinking, well, maybe a consultant coached her to say that, a consultant clearly had not coached the presidential candidate himself with a good answer. Elizabeth Edwards cut through the B.S. to what mattered about the biggest question the Democratic four have so far been asked together. Maybe she should be the one doing the coaching of the candidate.
Gregg Easterbrook is a senior editor at TNR.
lesbian affairs. what are you 13? How immature.
