“We Should Not Matter”
by Ben Branham on April 20, 2008 in Citizen Conversation with...
The Citizen Conversation with … Elizabeth Edwards
Elizabeth Edwards, the wife of two-time Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards and, like her husband, a former attorney, served as a Visiting Fellow at Harvard’s Institute of Politics the week of April 7. During her stay, she talked to the Citizen about why spouses should not matter in presidential election, why she’s stopped watching network news, and what it’s like to bring your children on the campaign trail.
Q: You’ve now done a presidential campaign twice. Has the role of a candidate’s spouse has changed? (LISTEN TO AUDIO CLIP ABOVE)
The people who broke the mold on campaigning [as the spouse of a presidential candidate] are people that nobody ever thinks about: Betty Ford and Roslyn Carter. Roslyn Carter would go out and sit in the kitchens of people in Iowa and talk about the price of fertilizer. We didn’t have CSPAN or other things that followed her around and got to see that this was what she was doing, but she did a lot of that-campaigning without [her husband]. Betty Ford doing the same thing, campaigning and being out there and speaking her own mind.
I think spouses are nearly irrelevant. I don’t want to say totally irrelevant. I don’t know that if you were truly magnificent in some way that might enhance the candidate, but the biggest way they might be relevant is if they were in some way distracting. Cindy McCain has that capability because of her drug issues and stealing from the charity. Theresa Heinz Kerry had it because of the political personality that had been imposed on her. … She was painted in a way that turned out to be a negative for the campaign. But can you really make a positive difference? Probably not. And should you make a difference at all? I think no. I think you’re role is so minimal, largely ceremonial. You can take on issues, but the likelihood of a presidential first spouse taking on a truly controversial issue-reading, literacy, childhood vaccination, beautifying our highways-this is the stuff of first ladies. We’re not talking about anything that’s truly groundbreaking. So what difference does it make?
I had a slightly different bent. I was interested in military families, having come from one. But that’s not controversial. So why in the world should I matter? Or Michelle [Obama] or Cindy [McCain]? We should not matter. We’re picking the leader of the free world and yet there’s this fascination [with the candidate’s spouses]. It’s this celebrity culture. … I expect a tremendous fixation on it. When we’re making this choice I think is really counter-productive.
As for the role of what you do as a campaigner, … I was very frugal about using people’s money. Somebody who wrote a $2,300 check is never going to miss it. But some people sent in $25 and we’re spending that money too. You need to be careful about how you spend it. You need to say, “Am I actually changing somebody’s mind?” I was never sure if that was true, but it sure wasn’t going to be true if I didn’t talk about the policies. So I felt an obligation to the donor to get out there and be as good a surrogate as [former Secretary of Labor] Robert Reich is for Obama. I wasn’t going to be Oprah for Obama or Tim Robbins for us and draw people to the event. That wasn’t going to happen. So I actually had to have something to say.
Q: In your Forum address, you were pretty critical of the media for putting entertainment ahead of substance. Do you think that part of the problem with the media is more of a demand problem? The analogy that comes to mind is, everyone wants a Big Mac even though they know it’s bad for them. And we have a public that wants to find out the latest on Britney Spears. So how do you disentangle what people want from what they should want?
A: I think a lot reasons people eat a Big Mac as opposed to a salad is because they can drive through and get the Big Mac and eat it while they drive. And they can’t eat the salad. If somebody put a salad out in front of them, people might eat that instead. But we make it very easy to eat the Big Mac, very hard to eat the salad. And therefore people make the choices that they do.
We make it very hard to get really good information about candidates or about issues, certainly on investigative things, and very easy to hear about what’s happening with Britney Spears or Lindsay Lohan or-and this is the most incredible to me-Anna Nicole Smith is sort of a freakish kind of character. Not a major star in any way. Yet we spend how many hours of certainly the cable news time and also on the national news on who is the father of Anna Nicole Smith’s baby? A completely useless piece of information about a completely minor character on the waterfront. Is that because that’s what we asked for? I’ve heard the press say it in embarrassed tones, “We wouldn’t be doing this kind of coverage if that’s not what people wanted,” but I’m flipping channels and I got nothing but Anna Nicole Smith!
Q: But if that brings up the ratings, what do you do, what’s next?
A: I think it’s the corporate headquarters kind of mentality. I want journalists nationwide to stand up and say, “That’s it. We’re going to be serious journalists. … We are not going to do this stuff anymore. You can hire some jacklight person.” And for the rest of us to say, “As long as Charmin is advertising the Anna Nicole Smith trial, I’m not buying Charmin.”… But I do think we need to at some point say “This is too important an issue.” We’re not going to get the general public to do it. So it’s probably going to require journalists to say, “I cannot, will not, be a part of this.” … I do think that there are some efforts to change the landscape. But there are still too many people who get their news from the network news. And the network news is just sorry. … I actually quit watching the national network news. Unless I know my husband is going to be on the national network news, I don’t watch it. I find it boring. I’ll watch [the NewsHour with Jim] Lehrer and I’ll watch BBC.
Q: A lot was written during the campaign about bringing your two younger children with you on the trail. How difficult was that and what role do you see it having as they continue to grow up?
A: I moved around my whole life and I found that to be an experience that has made my adult life a lot easier. It certainly made political life a lot easier because I can go into a room and I don’t care if people are strangers. I was constantly being thrust into new situations. So, I have a parenting philosophy that you need to give your kids wings, and you give them wings by giving them experiences where they’re sort of left on their own.
Because they are home-schooled they had to take a test this year. One of components [of the test they were taking] is an oral conversation. The woman was asking Jack-he’s seven and was taking the test for second grade-she said, “Jack, there’s a book about this man in England. He robbed from the rich and gave to the poor. Do you know who that man is?” He said, “I’m not familiar with that story, but he sounds like a communist.” I figure the woman’s thinking, “Oh my God he doesn’t know Robin Hood the fairy tale, but he does apply this story to a political theory correctly.” Laughs.
Q: Given the that all the prominent Democratic candidates for President and their spouses went to law school, what do you think of the difference between a law degree preparing one for public service and a place like the Kennedy School?
A: I actually think a law degree itself doesn’t prepare you as well to be out there in politics. I think if you actually practiced [law] and you were getting people’s problems and working out answers, that part might actually be useful. John’s trial experience was extraordinarily useful to him - being able to take a complex matter and explain it to a group of jurors, just like voters, you don’t want to talk down to them but you need to explain something more complex than their educational background is going to allow them to comprehend. You’ve got to simplify it or personalize it in some ways. That experience was probably a help. … I love the policy people. I spend lots of time with them and they’re my favorite people on the campaign. But I bring a different perspective to it. Because if you just learn the policies themselves, you’ve also got to live a regular life. That’s probably a more important component than a law degree would ever be.
Q: How does my hair compare to your husband’s?
A: Actually you have great hair.
Written by Ben Branham · Filed Under Citizen Conversation with...
Ben Branham (MPP2) is a former News Editor of the Citizen. Prior to his time at the Harvard Kennedy School, Branham worked as a press secretary in the administration of New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg. He spent last summer creating “One Vote Under God” (www.onevoteundergod.org), a web matrix documenting the role of faith and religion in the 2008 presidential campaign as part of the national News21 initiative (newsinitiative.org). He attended college at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he majored in English. Other past jobs include waiting tables, mowing lawns, giving tours, and selling pies to raise money for people with HIV/AIDS. Originally from Chicago, Branham now lives in Cambridge, MA with no pets. He's a Scorpio.
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Most of the time, I agree with Elizabeth. Edwards in her views, but I take exception on this one: she mattered and many voters were drawn to her spouse’s campaign because of her ideas, empathy, and pragmatism.
Another reason she mattered: the media wouldn’t have brought up her criticisms of John McCain’s health care plan today, and when asked to respond, he wouldn’t have fired back with such hubris.
Being asked to be a visiting fellow at IOP and at the Center for American Progress also mean her views matter.