Balancing Act for Presidential Wives

16 years after Michelle married Barack Obama she moved into a house with a wing to herself. Her staff includes a personal secretary, a cook and a florist. She receives no salary. Formally, she has a single assignment: to be a glamorous hostess for parties in the White House.

It may sound like a worry-free existence, but a long list of presidential wives have subsequently admitted that they were ill at ease with the strange duty of being the nation’s First Lady. Jackie Kennedy was always beautifully dressed, but bit her nails down to the quick. Betty Ford boozed and took sedatives. Laura Bush has explained how she felt misunderstood and underestimated.

For the woman who aspires to move into the White House’s East Wing, it counts to polish her personality well. A potential presidential wife must have a sophisticated psychology which should be both well-rehearsed and calculated. Every presidential candidate needs a smart, hard-working partner to even have a chance of winning. This partner should preferably represent the fantasy of the perfect American woman, to whom everyone can relate. Like her husband, she should be just a little bit better than others, but also be sufficiently normal. She is fertile, understanding and slightly old-fashioned. She is full of feminine mystique and is able to help her husband unwind.

Above all, she must never be sour, ugly or the slightest bit politically controversial. She best serves her political purpose as Madonna and mother. She stands above politics and makes her husband a slightly more human creature for whom more people can think of voting. As the president’s wife, she later waits to assume a more regal, unobtrusive role and for the most part is entirely silenced.

“If someone had said to me that one of them would be president one sunny day, I would probably have guessed her.”* So declared the former chief editor of the Chicago Tribune when she met Michelle and Barack Obama for the first time. The young couple were united by their interest in social issues. They both wanted to change the world. However, it was clear that Michelle was the more driven and organized of the two. With degrees from both Harvard and Princeton, she was ambitious and self-confident. She was even Barack’s superior when she got her first summer internship in a law office. There, she treated him a little nonchalantly to begin with, but he was persistent in his pursuit.

They have told the story of how they met many times on TV sofas and newspaper interviews. Michelle and Barack Obama seldom miss the opportunity to talk about how their family matters most. He may be commander-in-chief and commander of the armed forces, but she has appointed herself mom-in-chief. During the election campaign, Obama has said that his wife’s work is both more important and difficult than his, since she has to take more responsibility for their two daughters. The message is part of the American story — the woman who protects life itself and sees that there is something to defend, with violence if so required.

Michelle is now a dream for her husband’s campaign staff. She bakes nutritious cookies, dances spontaneously, and visits classrooms all at a high tempo, in her self-assigned role as spokesperson for children’s health, exercise and nutrition. She has planted a kitchen garden on the White House lawn and written a book in which she poses with cucumbers and peppers and gives tips on how to make salad. However, it’s not just fluff and well-directed photo opportunities — new legislation has been passed on, among other things, nutritional content of school food, thanks to her work.

Michelle is now so popular that she is sent to areas where her husband has less support to talk about what a great person he is. However, it took a while before she toned down her own personality and adapted it to a more politically suitable form. Jodi Kantor’s book, “The Obamas,” describes a woman who would really prefer to be more vociferous and take on more sensitive issues, such as mental illness among war veterans. However, she detests losing; after several missteps during the election campaign of 2008, where she was depicted as “angry” — which is the most objectionable a woman can be in the eyes of traditionalists — she has mainly cultivated her persona as a devoted wife and mother.

In the world of the political consultant, there are two well-known examples whom a candidate’s wife should avoid resembling. The first is Nancy Reagan, who sat in on the president’s morning briefing and openly exerted her influence on her husband. The other is Hillary Clinton, who tried to implement her own initiatives for health reform. Those same qualities which later made her an admired Secretary of State were less successful for a First Lady in the public’s eyes. As head of foreign policy it has since been better to assume traditionally masculine characteristics, for instance to open her mouth and show herself to be a tough negotiator.

Maybe for lack of other opportunities for expressing themselves in politics, the wives have long used their appearance to communicate. Their clothes are judged whether they wish it or not; Michelle Obama has learnt to use this to her advantage. Turning up in a cheap cardigan and skirt from J Crew has inspired women to be equally ingenious and thrifty. She signals that she knows these are hard times. For foreign state visits and official dinners, however, it is nuclear weapons that matter — in such situations she earns no points for economizing and so can instead wear a full length tailor-made Jason Wu.

Contending wife Ann Romney has a slightly more classic tailored style, with Oscar de la Renta and lots of red, white and blue; in addition, she often has a pearl necklace, gold jewelry and pumps. One of her Palm Beach designers pointed out last week that all his clothes — as opposed to Michelle Obama’s cheaper pieces — are produced in the U.S. So the Republicans score a point with the manufacturing industry in the candidates’ wives’ low-intensity struggle to be the most sympathetic woman.

However, Ann Romney only has the energy to campaign a few days at a time with her husband since she suffers from a nervous system disease, multiple sclerosis, and has difficulty with mobility. Ann Romney recently became more familiar to voters when she gave a speech about her husband at the Republican National Convention, with the obvious aim of becoming a little more personal and speaking to women. As a mother of five sons, she has been completely focused on her family, with which she also scored a point when a Democratic strategist pointed out that she had never been employed. “Believe me, it was hard work,” she tweeted and thus spoke directly to the American women who have chosen to stay at home with their children.

Like Michelle Obama, she is also significantly more influential over policy and her husband than her discreet image implies. Ann Romney has explained that it was she who encouraged her husband to run for the presidency again this year, just as it was she who persuaded him to run the last time. Simply because he is needed so much, she has explained.

Thus runs the race for the White House, the candidates both flanked by women who want more than they say out loud. Nobody votes solely on the basis of the candidate’s wife, but there are some seeking clues about the candidate’s human side. The ideal candidate’s wife can make her husband appear as a normal, upright husband who happens to be smart enough to be entrusted with the task of controlling the free world. Above all, he is so important that she sacrifices herself and takes on the rest.

One of the few occasions when the candidates’ wives became political was when they spoke at their respective conventions about their men. Michelle Obama defended, inter alia, her husband’s health care reform:

“Barack refused to listen to all those folks who told him to leave health reform for another day, another president. He didn’t care whether it was the easy thing to do politically — that’s not how he was raised — he cared that it was the right thing to do.”

Ann Romney’s objective was to give a more personal depiction of Mitt:

“Everything has become harder. We’re too smart to know there aren’t easy answers. But we’re not dumb enough to accept that there aren’t better answers. And that is where this boy I met at a high school dance comes in. His name is Mitt Romney and you really should get to know him. I could tell you why I fell in love with him — he was tall, laughed a lot, was nervous — girls like that, it shows the guy’s a little intimidated — and he was nice to my parents but he was really glad when my parents weren’t around.”

*Editor’s note: This quotation, accurately translated, could not be verified.