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For better and for worse
05/04/2007 14:55 - (SA)
Washington - Multiple, adoring, puzzling marriages are forming a rich subplot to the 2008 battle for the White House, as candidates mine private lives for political gain, but tiptoe through personal minefields.
Hillary Clinton, half of America's most analysed marriage with ex-president husband Bill, who was impeached over an affair with a White House intern, leads a Democratic field laced with marital intrigue.
Rival John Edwards thrust his near 30-year union into the public eye after cancer returned to haunt his popular wife Elizabeth in March, sparking fierce debate on their decision to stay in the race.
A Newsweek poll showed 56% of Americans say Edwards should continue his campaign, while 25% said he should withdraw.
For senator Barack Obama, wife Michelle is an asset in his campaign, and she jokes about his failure to put socks in the dirty laundry, humanising a rock-star candidate best known for lofty rhetoric.
Rudolph Giuliani, leader in Republican polls, and wife Judith Nathan have racked up six marriages between them.
Close behind are remarried rival senator John McCain, and former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, who tells audiences wife Ann is "my sweetheart".
Divorce, infidelity
While divorce has shed its stigma in modern life, no one knows the political ramifications of such varied private lives, or whether the days of the perfect "first family" template are over.
The model White House marriage might be the public love affair between Ronald and Nancy Reagan, or conventional match-up of George W and first lady Laura Bush.
But even Reagan's storybook was not all it seemed, as he was the first divorced man elected president.
So far, allegations of past infidelity that dogged Bill Clinton in office have not harmed his wife's campaign in which he is a huge political asset, given his popularity among Democrats.
Tensions in the marriage have always been at the centrepiece of the Clinton story: several times Hillary was the rock who saved Bill as scandal swirled around them.
An iconic image of the Clinton presidency came when the estranged couple walked hand-in-hand with daughter Chelsea to the presidential helicopter at the height of the Monica Lewinsky scandal.
The Clinton campaign also raises the intriguing possibility that America's 42nd president will become its first "first husband".
Conservative Christian voters
Giuliani's marital history poses a challenge as he bolsters shaky credentials with conservative Christian voters, for whom traditional family values are a tenet of faith.
Last week, Giuliani caused a stir by telling ABC television he would be "very, very comfortable" with his wife at cabinet meetings.
He later backtracked, but did use the appearance to refute gossip that Nathan was to blame for the failure of his previous marriage.
"I think I should be very, very clear that she was not the cause of the break-up in any way at all," he said.
Private tragedy for the Edwards family is playing out in public.
The couple appeared arm-in-arm to deliver their sombre news in March, and have said the tragic death of son Wade in 1996 prepared them to weather the gathering emotional storm.
Support
Michelle Obama often introduces her husband at campaign rallies, and at a Chicago fundraiser in February said she shared his White House dreams.
"I enter into this next phase of our journey not completely knowing what to expect, but with eyes wide open, fully aware of the joys and the pain, the agony and the ecstasy, the sacrifices and the triumphs," she said.
Romney gushes over his wife in a love letter on his website, saying: "Ann is an angel. She's a hot angel, but she's an angel nonetheless. It's a privilege, it's a joy, it's my entire life to have Ann in my life. My sweetheart. Thank you Ann."
Some analysts suggest the close-knit Romney family, with five sons, is being used to show how "normal" Romney is, despite his Mormon faith, viewed with suspicion in some parts of the United States.
Front-runners are not the only ones with a parable of wedlock to weave.
Democratic senator Joseph Biden tears up when relating how a car crash killed his wife and infant daughter, and a second marriage soothed the pain.
Fellow Democratic long shot, 62-year-old senator Christopher Dodd, uses late-in-life fatherhood of two young children as a laugh line.
"By the way, I'm the only presidential candidate that gets mail from AARP and diaper services," Dodd tells audiences, referring to a lobby group for retired people.
- AFP
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