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| Associated Press |
Cindy McCain is pictured in Vietnam, also quoted criticizing Burma, taking a page from Hillary Clinton’s playbook: “I don’t understand how human life doesn’t matter to somebody. But clearly, it doesn’t matter to them.”
Meanwhile, Michelle Obama was doing “The View.”
Seems to me to paint very stark and competing portraits of two important political wives. Mind you, Michelle Obama has the intellect to equal Cindy McCain’s outreach. But the fact is that this isn’t where the Obama campaign gurus wanted Mrs. Obama to go. It’s a pattern with Democratic message people when it comes to our nominee’s wife.
In Mrs.
McCain’s interview with John King yesterday, she was dressed in a baseball
cap and a baggy shirt, pictured walking through an Operation Smile facility in Vietnam that has
to do with repairing facial deformities. To add, Cindy and John McCain’s adopted daughter Bridget, whom they met through Mother Theresa’s orphanage, had a cleft pallate that was successfully repaired, and the McCains are on the board of directors for Operation Smile.
Cindy McCain is in Vietnam on a medical mission and also doing interviews
on the U.S. political campaign. Today on CNN she said she doesn’t think wives
and families are fair game in the election, and she does think Michelle Obama
is a “fine woman.”McCain made spontaneous comments about being proud of her country in February
after Obama said that she was really proud of her country “for the first
time in my adult lifetime.”McCain said on CNN that her remarks were “an emotional outpouring”
from someone in a family oriented toward military service. “It was nothing
more than me just saying I believe in this country so strongly,” she
said. …
Obviously, the McCain camp is very confident in his wife’s role, what she has
to offer and anything she might say.
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By contrast you had the Obama campaign working to do a makeover on Michelle
Obama on “The View.” I know, I know, the campaign said that’s not what they were doing, but everyone knows it was because it was obvious.
Of course, Cindy McCain made an appearance on the show too, to cover over for a recipe
flap. Michelle Obama went on the show to try to cover over what was seen as
an unpatriotic slap. The opening line in the Times
review sets the stage: First, she had to unclench her fist.
Mind you, Mrs. Obama was flawless in the event, even managing to cause a positive
fashion run on the store that supplied her beautiful black and white dress.
However, there was something vapid, “She’s really safe! Honest” about
Mrs. Obama’s appearance. No cause, except her own. No passion, except to say
that she’s okay. No lasting impact. That might have been the point, which is
what is so disconcerting, especially when compared to Cindy McCain and her causes in Vietnam and Burma. No doubt Mrs. Obama could have rivaled the photo op, but inside the Obama camp that’s the last place they were headed with her.
Not that anyone votes on first lady choices, but Democrats seem to be walking down the same path we always
do on these things. Softening the strength out of the spouse because we’re afraid
the feminist within will be exposed. While the Republicans, for lack of a better
way to phrase it, let Cindy McCain be, well, Cindy McCain.
It is a familiar pattern. Democratic candidates’ wives — from
Rosalynn Carter and Kitty Dukakis to Hillary Rodham Clinton and Teresa Heinz
Kerry — are almost invariably characterized by opponents as too feisty
and too outspoken, a little too radical for mainstream America. Betty Ford
was an early exception to the Republican rule of bland, self-effacing homemakers;
as the Equal Rights Amendment faded as a cause and conservatism made a comeback,
Republican spouses became ever more careful to stay three steps behind their
men and the times. And some have become so intent that they are accused of
playacting. …
Michelle Obama has previously earned very critical reviews around here for
her impolitic statements, so I was pleased she did “The View” to round
off edges that appeared early on in moments on the trail that were beyond abrasive.
But at the same time I wondered why this couldn’t have been accomplished in a manner that was less
“Leave It To Beaver,” illustrating Mrs. Obama’s passions
and her purpose instead. I can’t be the only one sensing that the Obama camp is having
a Theresa Heinz Kerry, Hillary Clinton moment, telegraphing they’re uncomfortable
with yet another strong spouse who might scare middle America and doesn’t know
quite what to do about it. But reverting to traditional stereotypes never seems
to work, because it doesn’t fit the woman. It’s also not very original or creative, instead a throw back. That’s what was wrong
with “The View” appearance yesterday. It was Michelle Obama airbrushed.
Juxtapose that against Cindy McCain dressed down in Vietnam, then talking about Burma’s disrespect for human rights, and you have quite
a contrast.
Authenticity meets image concoction. First lady auditions are ugly.
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