Project President

by Ben Shapiro

  Marie Fehmer, LBJ’s secretary, “remembered a trip to California with Mrs. Johnson shortly after she was hired. LBJ and Mary Margaret Wiley were already there, and when Lady Bird and Marie arrived, a woman’s underwear was strewn all over the hotel room. Instead of being angry, Lady Bird seemed to go out of her way to be nice to Mary Margaret.” Similarly, Lady Bird once conveniently scheduled a trip so as to avoid an illicit weekend former congresswoman Helen Douglas was to spend with the president.68

  Standing calmly by LBJ, Lady Bird provided the president’s image with the stability and polish it lacked. She also provided valuable advice to Johnson. Johnson claimed that Lady Bird made up his mind about running for reelection in 1964.69 Lady Bird attempted a brand new strategy during the campaign—in order to shield Johnson from direct Southern criticism of his civil rights program, Lady Bird campaigned in his stead in the South. She took a nineteen-car train called The Lady Bird Special across 1,682 miles and eight states, speaking forty-six times. One hundred and fifty reporters accompanied her.

  Johnson aide George Reedy described Lady Bird’s appeal: “She’s very intuitive about people; she’s not swept off her feet by flattery. She has a marvelous knack for saying the right thing at the right time. And she has extraordinary good sense.”70 During the whistle-stop tour, Southern whites relentlessly heckled Lady Bird, some holding “Goldwater for President” signs. Lady Bird’s tour made LBJ look like a moderate; Goldwater was portrayed as the extremist.71

  On Election Day, LBJ—with a helping hand from his wife—won a landslide reelection victory over Goldwater.

  THE 1976 CAMPAIGN pitted dark horse Democratic candidate and former Georgia governor Jimmy Carter against President Nixon’s successor, Gerald Ford. The candidates had much in common: both felt genial and trustworthy. The contrast between Betty Ford and Rosalynn Carter, however, was stark. Betty Ford was a garrulous con troversialist; Carter was a steadfast, varnished politician. Betty Ford’s positions on abortion, premarital sex, and marijuana use damaged her husband’s credibility—both she and her husband seemed sort of goofy. Rosalynn Carter provided a more rational touch, balancing out Jimmy Carter’s erratic presidential campaign.

  Betty Ford was open to a fault. “When Ford said this will be an open presidency, we thought, ‘O.K., let’s let the first lady open up,’ ” explained Sheila Weidenfeld, the first lady’s press secretary.72 “She’s the best kind of liberated woman,” gushed radical feminist Betty Freidan. “I don’t believe that being First Lady should prevent me from expressing my ideas,” said First Lady Ford. “Why should my husband’s ideas, or your husbands’ prevent us from being ourselves?”73

  That attitude did not pay off for President Ford. Betty was a strange combination of New Age openness and traditional housewife. During a shocking 60 Minutes interview in 1975, Betty called Roe v.Wade, the decision creating a constitutional right to abortion, a “great, great decision”; she stated that she “wouldn’t be surprised” if her eighteen-year-old unmarried daughter Susan were having sex; she bluntly asserted that young people living together was a fact of life; she admitted that if she were young, she would try marijuana. Though her comments were popular nationally, they were quite unpopular with conservatives. Dr.W. A. Criswell, the pastor of the largest Baptist congregation in the world, ripped Betty’s “gutter type of mentality”; the LAPD seconded the motion.74 “The immorality of Mrs. Ford’s remarks is almost exceeded by their stupidity,” the Manchester Union Leader angrily wrote.75

  Still, that didn’t stop Betty. She soon informed McCall’s magazine that reporters had asked her every question under the sun, except for how often she slept with the president. If they had asked, she said, she would have told them “as often as possible.”76 As Newsweek observed, “while a Harris survey showed overwhelming approval for Betty’s plain speaking, the fine print pointed out that Southerners, rural conservatives, skilled workers and voters over 50 were not exactly beguiled.”77

  But Betty wasn’t done yet. When the Equal Rights Amendment passed through Congress and required ratification at the state level, Betty threw her support behind the amendment. She called up state legislators to pressure them. “I realize you’re under a lot of pressure from the voters today,” she said to one female legislator from Missouri, “but I’m just calling to let you know that the President and I are considerably interested . . . I think the ERA is so important.”78

  Betty wasn’t all controversy—she made public her fight against breast cancer, bringing attention to the disease. But all in all, she reinforced the perception of her husband as a well-intentioned oaf. After her husband’s 1976 defeat, Betty became even more of an icon than she was during her tenure as first lady. The New York Times described her as “a product and a symbol of the cultural and political times—doing the Bump along the corridors of the White House, donning a mood ring, chatting on her CB radio with the handle First Mama—a housewife who argued passionately for equal rights for women, a mother of four who mused about drugs, abortion and premarital sex aloud and without regret.”79 During the election of 1976, however, Betty wasn’t received with quite as much deference.

  If Betty Ford personified irreverence, Rosalynn Carter personified polish. Rosalynn was an excellent speaker, and during the 1976 campaign, she put that skill to use. She and Jimmy campaigned separately, crisscrossing the country to reach as many people as possible. She worked eighteen hours per day. During the primaries, she spoke in thirty states; during the general election, she spoke in more than one hundred cities. She had her own personal Learjet. “It was like having two candidates,” Carter’s son Jack stated. “It meant we could travel twice as far and meet twice the number of people. I think that won it for us.” And the media loved her, labeling her a “Steel Magnolia.”80

  Where President Ford had to put out Betty’s fires, Jimmy Carter had Rosalynn to extinguish his own. When Jimmy told Playboy magazine that he had lusted in his heart after other women, Rosalynn wryly said, “Jimmy talks too much, but at least people know he’s honest and doesn’t mind answering questions.”81 Rosa-lynn was so convincing that Carter media advisor Gerald Rafshoon ran an ad allowing Rosalynn to address the Playboy controversy. “Jimmy’s never had any hint of scandal in his personal or in his public life. I really believe he can restore that honesty and integrity, openness, competence in government that we so sorely need in our country today. I think he’ll be a great president,” Rosalynn informed the audience.82

  Rosalynn’s polish helped Jimmy more than Betty’s forthrightness helped Ford. If voters didn’t like her, Betty said, “they’ll just have to throw me out.”83 They did. On Inauguration Day, Jimmy Carter became president.

  HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON. The very name polarizes. Hillary Rodham Clinton was certainly the most ambitious first lady in the history of American politics. The 2008 presidential candidate and senator from New York splits the country right down the center.To liberals, Hillary is a goddess; to conservatives, she is a devil.

  All of the controversy surrounding Hillary obscures the fact that during the 1992 election, she contributed mightily to Bill’s success. Early on, Hillary acted the part of loyal wife standing stoically by her man through thick and thin. In late January 1992, Gennifer Flowers revealed that she had engaged in a long-standing extramarital affair with then Arkansas governor Bill Clinton. Hillary appeared with Bill on 60 Minutes on January 26 to counter the charges.When host Steve Kroft pushed Bill on the adultery issue, Bill awkwardly stated, “You’re looking at two people who love each other. This is not an arrangement or an understanding. This is a marriage. That’s a very different thing.”

  Hillary quickly jumped in with the line that likely saved Bill Clinton’s presidential campaign: “You know, I’m not sitting here like some little woman standing by my man like Tammy Wynette. I’m sitting here because I love him and I respect him and I honor what he’s been through and what we’ve been through together. And, you know, if that’s not enough for people, then, heck, don’t
vote for him.”84 The reaction was immediate and mostly positive. By January 27, ABC News was reporting that 80 percent of Americans wanted the media to drop the Flowers story, 70 percent approved of Clinton’s appearance, and Clinton was actually gaining strength in New Hampshire.85

  It was only later in the campaign that Hillary truly began her cringe-inducing behavior. In March, Hillary obliquely critiqued homemakers, stating, “I suppose I could have stayed home and baked cookies and had teas, but what I decided to do was to fulfill my profession, which I entered before my husband was in public life.”86

  At about the same time, she made several controversial statements about the reasoning capacity of children. “I don’t believe in parental consent [for underage girls’ abortions],” Hillary told NPR, “because I think that in many instances there’s always—already been an irrevocable family breakdown. The parents are not going to be helpful and supportive. It’s cruel to presume that any right answer is the one that should be imposed on everyone.” She followed up that rather radical statement by opining that children should be able to sue their parents: “To assume that every child under a certain age, say 18 or 21, is incompetent is to treat a 17-year-old like a one-year-old and I don’t think that’s a very sensible proposal.”87

  Despite such gaffes, Hillary’s favorable ratings continued to climb. By October, her favorable ratings were at 56 percent, as opposed to 25 percent unfavorable. Hillary never approached the popularity of Barbara Bush—Barbara’s numbers in the same poll were 81 percent favorable and 12 percent unfavorable—but Hillary’s clever political maneuvering with regard to her husband’s penchant for promiscuity minimized the damage on that front.

  Hillary’s front-and-center campaign presence contributed in another important way: by making herself a target, she drew fire from Republicans including President George H.W. Bush. “Hillary Clinton in an apron is like Michael Dukakis in a tank,” Bush campaign strategist Roger Ailes gibed.88 “Of course, advising Bill Clinton on every move, is that champion of the family Hillary Clinton, who believes that kids should be able to sue their parents, rather than helping with the chores as they were asked to do. She’s likened marriage and the family to slavery. She’s referred to the family as a dependency relationship that deprives people of their rights,” stated Republican National Committee chairman Richard Bond at the Republican National Convention.89

  Pat Buchanan echoed those comments: “ ‘Elect me, and you get two for the price of one,’ Mr. Clinton says of his lawyer spouse, and what does Hillary believe? Well, Hillary believes that 12-year-olds should have the right to sue their parents, and Hillary has compared marriage and the family as institutions to slavery and life on an Indian reservation.”90 Bush defended criticism of Hillary, averring, “If you’re out there on issues . . . and you have an activist past, that is a little different than if you’re not taking positions.”91

  Attacking Hillary actually backfired on Bush—he began to be perceived as mean, a perception reinforced by Bill’s defense of his “victimized” wife. “They’re running against Hillary, basically trying to make it a Willie Horton-like issue. And it’s not really about Hillary, but they’ve had to grossly distort and outright falsify her views in order to attack her.What they . . . what they’re trying to do is make it kind of a Willie Horton kind of thing against all independent working women,” Bill complained.92 As for Bush, Clinton joked, “You’d think he was running for First Lady.”93 Bush’s National Convention bump soon wore off, his support among women eroded,94 and he never recovered.

  During the next eight years, Hillary’s profile continued to rise—and her politics continued to divide. She was most popular when she played the part of loyal wife; she did the worst when she took an active part in politics. Her “Hillarycare” proposal contributed to the landmark Republican congressional take-back in 1994; her support of Bill during the Lewinsky scandal bolstered his popularity and made her an object of sympathy. On the whole—and certainly in 1992—Hillary as first lady was a net positive for her husband.

  FOR EIGHT YEARS, Al Gore stood in the shadow of Bill Clinton. In 2000, he tried to escape that shadow, making particular use of his wife,Tipper. If Hillary was a more militant and radical Eleanor Roosevelt, Tipper was more along the lines of Lady Bird Johnson or Rosalynn Carter—a family woman concerned with family causes. In 1985, Tipper cofounded the Parents Music Resource Center, a group dedicated to informing parents about the potentially toxic content of rock and rap music.Tipper specifically stated that Americans would not receive a “two for one” if they elected her husband; she refused to be labeled a political advisor to Gore.

  “The point is, we always shared,” Tipper said. “We’ve always asked each other for advice. And now, suddenly, it’s being, you know, microscoped and analyzed out. Like I’m a political adviser. No. I’m his wife. Yes, we talk. My opinion counts, and his opinion counts with me. That’s it. We talk about everything. We always have.”95 Unlike Bill’s relationship with Hillary, Gore’s relationship with Tipper was not subject to speculation.Tipper campaigned hard for her husband, speaking routinely on his behalf.96

  But Tipper was also an actor in perhaps the strangest moment of the 2000 campaign: the Tongue Lock. At the Democratic National Convention, Gore “spontaneously” grabbed Tipper, bent her over, and laid a long kiss on her. “The sheer carnality of the kiss—the can’t-wait-to-get-back-to-the-hotel-room urgency, the sexual electricity flowing south—was riveting,” gushed columnist Lance Morrow.97

  The kiss was a rather obvious attempt to shake the public perception that Al Gore was a block of wood. “The Kiss sent an obvious political message—here’s a man still passionately, faithfully in love with his wife, unlike the president he hopes to succeed—that was ultimately far less important than the total openness and surrender it implied,” wrote Nick Gillespie. “Yes, Gore will let us watch, if that’s what it takes to woo us.”98

  Naturally Gore denied the accusation that the Tongue Lock was staged: “I didn’t map out some strategy. I was really overcome by the emotions in the hall. It’s hard to describe what it’s like to stand up in front of that many thousands of people who were not only clapping and cheering, but really feeling an outpouring of emotion . . .We’ve been married 30 years . . . I think anybody who watches that can tell that it was not scripted.”99 From a man who scripted everything including his “alpha male” wardrobe, this was less than convincing.

  The Tongue Lock set tongues wagging. “I don’t know if you saw this or if you heard about it, but this is really strange,” cracked Conan O’Brien. “Last night, when Al Gore finally took the stage at the Democratic National Convention, he grabbed Tipper Gore and gave her a huge open-mouthed kiss on the lips. Did you see this? It’s amazing. Yeah, apparently, Tipper hadn’t been kissed like that since Monday night, when President Clinton took the stage.”100

  “Al Gore walked onstage at the Democratic National Convention and gave a deep, passionate kiss to his wife. It only served as another reminder that he’s no Bill Clinton,” joked Argus Hamilton.101

  “The Democrats are doing very well now. Apparently, the convention did a lot for them,” said Bill Maher. “It was a good convention. In fact, the LAPD bragged today that they kept things in very good order. They said they only had to turn the fire hoses on once, and that was to separate Al and Tipper Gore.”102

  The Tongue Lock served its purpose. “The kiss might not have turned political analysts on, but it apparently tugged more than a few heartstrings,” reported the Greensboro News & Record. “After months of trailing Bush, Gore experienced a big post-convention bounce in the polls. He even won over some independent and undecided voters. His biggest boost, however, was among women voters. A CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll found that Gore has a 22point lead among women voters. Bush has a 19-point lead among male voters. In focus groups, women applauded the kiss while some men booed it.”103

  The election was too close to call in the last days of the race. In late October, in ne
ed of a last-second push, Gore reverted again to smooching his wife.104 It wasn’t enough; though Gore won the popular vote, Bush won the presidency.

  TIPPER’S PRESENCE in the 2000 campaign was a boon for Al Gore. Teresa Heinz’s presence in Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry’s 2004 campaign was a disaster. Kerry suffered from perceptions that he was an elitist and a UN type. He suffered from the widespread perception that throughout his career, he had been a man on the make. Heinz spoke with a thick foreign accent. She had worked for the UN, was aggressive, had used botox, and her marriage to Kerry looked suspiciously like a marriage of mutual convenience. She was, in short, the worst first lady candidate in American history.

  Maria Teresa Thierstein Simões-Ferreira was born in Mozambique and immigrated to the United States to work as an interpreter for the United Nations. There she married billionaire John Heinz III, heir to the Heinz ketchup fortune. Heinz III served several terms in Congress and then entered the Senate. He was killed in a small aircraft collision in 1991. A year later, Teresa began dating Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts.

  “It’s an attraction that’s different because, you know, I was still wounded. And you are lonely still, also, you know. So at that age, I think, what you look for is some comfort, some friendship, some understanding,”Teresa explained. They married three years later, in 1995. They signed a prenuptial agreement. For eight years, she remained Teresa Heinz; only when Kerry began campaigning for president did she adopt his last name.105

  This checkered history dogged Kerry throughout his campaign. He had divorced a woman, Julia Thorne, whose family was worth $300 million; though the couple separated in 1982, Kerry waited until 1988 to have the marriage annulled. During the separation, Kerry dated Morgan Fairchild, Cornelia Guest, and Patti Davis. The divorce was a good career move for Kerry, who hooked up with Heinz, worth $500 million and the overseer of the $1.2 billion Heinz Foundation.106