In fact, this narrative has become a sort of fool-proof formula for contemporary presidential candidate’s wives since Laura Bush perfected it in 2000. After the damaging image of a power-mad Hillary Clinton, spousal reluctance has become a requirement, a kind of necessary modesty. That it’s so pervasive, despite the nagging voices in the back of our heads telling us it’s all PR, says a lot about what we still believe, or want to believe, about the modern first lady—how much we expect of her, and how little.
If political operatives work hard to fit a specific candidate’s wife into a general mold, it’s the media that solidifies the story. Even before Laura Bush, first lady coverage had become like a Mad Libs exercise, with newspaper profiles and TV reports just filling in the blanks. Almost always, the would-be first lady is described in terms that are at once mystical, worshipful, and subtly condescending, a little in the tradition of cinema’s Magical Negro. When she travels with the campaign, for instance, she is said to have a soothing and calming influence on her husband, something aides marvel at and can’t quite articulate. She is said to be able to home in on her husband’s faults and compensate for them. On the stump, she is said to have an ability to be “real” that her husband lacks, and this realness lets her connect with voters. (Politico recently observed that both Barack and Mitt are “dependent on their wives to channel their feelings to voters.”)
Herewith, a breakdown of the formula for a successful first lady.
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