Using Their Spouses

This piece discusses how the presidential candidates' spouses have played an important role in "humanizing" them.

The more of this we see, the more I respect Jackie Kennedy's determination to have as little as possible to do with her husband's campaign. Almost all the examples listed in the piece have been cloying and/or annoying.

Perhaps the one spouse who deserves special mention in this context -- although she doesn't receive it in the piece -- is Elizabeth Edwards. This week she slandered Rush -- and that's after she's bad-mouthed Hillary Clinton and sandbagged Ann Coulter. The attack-dog antics have done little to advance her husband's campaign, and if anything, have made him come off as something of a wimp. It's hard not to suspect that the public sympathy generated by her illness has led her to believe that she can get away with harsher rhetoric than she might otherwise employ. Notably, however, Ann Romney -- who has MS -- hasn't stooped to such tactics.