Today's Musical Selection: "Hard-Headed Woman" by Elvis Presley
Good day, everyone! Today I'm thinking about Teresa Heinz Kerry, in the wake of her speech at the Democratic convention last night. (Most everyone's buzzing about Barack Obama, and deservedly so; I'll cover him tomorrow.) I'm inspired to write about Teresa because of some negative commentary posted about her over at Real Clear Politics the last couple days. The gist of the comments: Mrs. Kerry is a liability to her husband's presidential campaign. I couldn't disagree more.
Yesterday, RCP's Tom Bevan used articles discussing Teresa's reputed bad temper to raise questions about her suitability as First Lady, though he is quick to stress that he personally thinks she's fine:
I recently talked to a friend of mine who interviewed Teresa and had nothing but good things to say about her. My friend said she was warm, funny, strong, and likeable in private. Unfortunately, Mrs. Heinz Kerry doesn't project nearly the same image publicly, if indeed that's really how she is.
Either way, another couple of outbursts like the one yesterday and her behavior could become a liability for Kerry. It won't help that the scrutiny of Teresa's temper will stand in stark contrast to Laura Bush, who rarely (if ever) has a bad word written or said about her.
People don't vote for first ladies, but candidates' wives can certainly leave either a positive or negative impression on voters (as Hillary did in 1992 with "let them stay home and bake cookies") which may help or hurt on the margins. In an election that could be razor-thin - especially in the traditional, values-oriented Midwest - John Kerry's wife could end up costing him some crucial votes.
Note well Bevan's passivity in describing the situation. At no point does he actually say, "Midwestern voters will reject John Kerry because of his wife." Instead, he just keeps saying that Teresa could be a problem for Kerry, particularly in the Midwest. It sounds vaguely like a mob boss issuing a sotto voce execution order: "Gentlemen, I have a feeling something very unfortunate could happen to Mr. Gambini this afternoon."
Today, John McIntyre continued the negative drumbeat, again raising the question of Teresa's fitness as a presidential spouse, and once again stressing that he personally thinks she's swell:
I've always felt Teresa was going to be a liability, if for no other reason than she is just not the average American's vision of what a First Lady should be like. Whether that is fair or unfair is another issue - and largely irrelevant to the discussion of her political impact. The bottom line is that together the accent, the money, and the attitude produce a package that isn't always flattering to middle America.
Personally, I've always found Teresa Heinz Kerry to be interesting not only because she is so opinionated and outspoken, but because in some ways she doesn't seem too self-absorbed by the importance of the campaign. That attitude can be refreshing in a primary campaign with multiple candidates. It's nice to have someone who is a little different. At some point, however, you would expect her to understand the gravity and importance of the situation that potentially awaits her should John Kerry win...
I don't think people vote for President because of the candidate's spouse, but after last night's speech it seems clear that Kerry's wife is going to be a liability for him. The real question is how much and will it matter. I'm not suggesting this is a big vote mover, but in a race that could be extremely close, even 0.3% in states like Ohio and Wisconsin could make all the difference the world.
Note well again: McIntyre believes that Teresa is "going to be a liability," though he personally likes her. That passivity again. What gives? If McIntyre and Bevan, both distinctly right-of-center politically, think Mrs. Kerry is engaging and entertaining, who is this anonymous "they" for whom she's going to be a problem?
What this is, of course, is a way for the GOP to tap anti-feminist prejudices without being overt about it. Conoisseurs of the old "Southern Strategy" will be familiar with this technique. After LBJ cast the Democrats firmly on the side of civil rights in '64, the Republicans sensed an opportunity. A lot of longtime Democratic voters, particularly in the South, didn't think much of the civil rights movement, and felt abandoned by their own party. The Republicans skillfully swooped in and, using coded racist appeals, picked up a lot of disaffected Southern voters. The GOP knew that overt racism was out, and would cost them a lot of support in the North, but talking about "tradition" and "preserving law and order" allowed the Republicans to assure white Southerners, with a wink and a nod, that the party was "safe" on race. Similarly, the modern GOP raises these "concerns" about Teresa Heinz Kerry to assure voters that the Republicans are "safe" on gender.
As with race in the '60s and '70s, there are a lot of voters, particularly in the South and Midwest, who feel at some level that this whole women's-rights business has gone too far, and that women belong back in the kitchen. Now, no mainstream party could overtly endorse that position without getting pounded, but if one party is on record rejecting it, the other one has an opportunity if it can find a way to reach those voters on the sly. The Republicans have used the candidate's-wife route to make this argument very effectively. If a Democratic candidate has a strong and ambitious spouse, the Republicans can raise questions about her and thereby reassure traditionalist voters without alienating more progressive moderates.
Hillary Clinton was the textbook opportunity for this. Democrats hailed Bill Clinton's wife (deservedly) as a smart, outspoken, independent and capable woman. They cheered when she talked about a "co-presidency" and "getting two for the price of one" and when she rejected the idea of standing by her man and baking cookies. Maybe Geraldine Ferraro's misadventures had put the kibbosh on having a woman on the ticket for now, but here was the next best thing: a First Lady who spoke out loud and proud about the issues facing the country. You go, girl!
Of course, there were plenty of voters who were uneasy about this. And the Republicans knew they'd have an advantage if they could reach those voters. But coming out and saying "Career women are scary" simply wouldn't do. So, instead, they started muttering about Hillary. "Isn't she awfully ambitious? Isn't she a pretty radical departure from the standards of a First Lady? Doesn't she seem awfully cold? And did you hear the way she slammed cookie-baking mothers? Can you believe that? Doesn't she appreciate what a good and noble thing it is to be a stay-at-home mother?" Clearly implied in all this was that the Republicans would never stand for uppity women getting too big for their britches. And traditionalist voters listened.
Here was the tricky part of the trap for Democrats: there's no effective way to respond to the coded appeal. Hillary couldn't just fade back into the woodwork without disappointing her Democratic fans and giving Republicans a chance to gloat. On the other hand, if Democrats responded by saying, "You're damned right Hillary's ambitious, and we love that! Something's wrong with you if you don't!", they're basically doing the Republicans' dirty work for them. It excites the pro-feminist crowd, sure, but it only further alienates the traditionalists who already aren't comfortable with Hillary. (That's the problem with bold progressivism that loudly rejects traditionalist thinking: all your opponents have to do is raise an eyebrow and say something like, "That's awfully bold," and boom, they've got the moderates in line behind them. It takes a pretty shocking event to change that dynamic.)
And if the Democrats attempted to call the Republicans out on their coded sexism, the Republicans could insist that they intended no such thing, and accuse the Democrats of militant political correctness. "What kind of world is it," the Republicans would say, "where you can't even raise the slightest concerns about a powerful woman without being accused of sexism?" Voila, now the Democrats look shrill, radical and paranoid. You see the diabolical brilliance of the rhetorical trap. It's like Chinese handcuffs: the harder the Democrats try to get out of it, the tighter they're bound.
(Really, it makes you wonder why anyone ever bothers with overt racism or sexism anymore. Covert appeals are so much more effective. As far as I can tell, that only occurs when racism or sexism is the dominant position, thus removing the need to be covert, or when the speaker isn't smart or sophisticated enough to do better.)
So now we have Teresa Heinz Kerry, a smart, outspoken, independent and capable woman. Her work and head of the Heinz Foundation revolutionized philanthropy, and revitalized the city of Pittsburgh. She's warm and personal where her husband is cold and formal. She's brash and blunt where her husband is careful and reserved. In some ways, she can be a real asset to the Kerry campaign. Therefore, she is a threat. So out comes the coded rhetoric again.
Now, Teresa's a "loose cannon." In other words, she's speaking out of her place, being uncontrollable and uppity. She's got a bad temper, another sign of her uncontrollability. (A bad temper is a whole lot more of a public liability for a powerful woman than a powerful man, no?) She doesn't understand the "gravity and importance" of being First Lady, which sounds like a critique of headstrong and flighty women if I ever heard one. (McIntyre also mentions her accent and wealth, a bonus appeal to xenophobia and classism.) She's a dangerous type, all right.
Perhaps you've also heard the well-circulated fable that the Heinz corporation, supposedly owned by Teresa, outsources its production overseas. Besides accusing Kerry of hypocrisy on the outsourcing issue, this story also takes another shot at Teresa by claiming that she controls the activities of the Heinz corporation. (This, by the way, is not true. She doesn't even own a significant percentage of the company stock.) Not only does she run the business, this story goes, but she's running it poorly, taking away jobs that rightly belong to American workers. But then, what can you expect if you leave a woman in charge, right?
Put altogether, the charges all add up to the same thing: Teresa is no one's idea of a traditional spouse. Because of that, she's a threat to the natural order of things. Sure, she was fun to listen to during the primaries, but was does it say about Democrats that they'd actually put her on the national ticket? Put Kerry in the White House, and who knows what she might do? Whatever it is, it's sure to be embarrassing to the country, because she doesn't understand her proper place.
By contrast, we have Laura Bush. Just like Sara Lee, nobody doesn't like Laura Bush. I like Laura Bush. I've yet to meet anyone who doesn't. But she's particularly beloved by Republicans because of what she represents. Barbara Bush was a traditionalist feminine icon, to be sure, but she was also of an age when American women didn't have a lot of other choices. Laura is of a different generation. She could have followed the path that Hillary Clinton did; she's roughly the same age as Hillary (only four years older), and she certainly seems bright and capable enough to do anything she cares to. But she chose to follow a more traditional route. She chooses not to makes waves in her public utterances. She chooses to deflect the spotlight, rather than court it. She chooses to stand loyally beside her husband and be a classic First Lady. What a perfect symbol! What a great model to show to traditionalist male voters who wish the women would quit whining and get back to cleaning the bathroom!
Again, the Democrats are in a bind here. If they proclaim Teresa's virtues too loudly, they're once again doing the Republicans' work for them. If they were to start taking shots at Laura, they'd not only alienate traditionalists, but they'd hand Republicans the opportunity to slam them for hypocrisy. (And rightfully so; Laura Bush's life choices are just as valid as Hillary Clinton's or Teresa Heinz Kerry's.) And if they remain silent, they seem to be tacitly acknowledging that Laura is the better First Lady. Once again, the trap is carefully set.
Here's where McIntyre and Bevan come in. Both of them can claim with perfect credibility that Mrs. Kerry's personality isn't affecting their votes at all. They'd vote for Bush no matter whom Kerry was married to. But by suggesting that Teresa "might be a problem" for Midwestern voters, they offer cover to those who might be on the fence in those states. (They'd have mentioned the South, too, except that conservative pundits don't want to admit that the South is competitive at all.) So your average male voter in, say, Ohio might be undecided between Bush and Kerry. Maybe Teresa's outspokenness makes him uncomfortable, but he doesn't want to admit that, because it makes him sound sexist. But Bevan and McIntyre have now given our hypothetical voter some talking points: "Yeah, it was a close call, but in the end, I just didn't go for Kerry's wife. Too chatty, too temperamental. Can't have someone like that representing the country." And so he pulls the lever for Bush.
And what can Democrats do? Not a whole lot. As I mentioned, it's a pretty effective trap. But the Democrats need to force the Republicans out of the coded-language bunker and get them speaking openly about the proper role of women. If the GOP has to start speaking openly about what they feel is appropriate for women in general, rather than just taking potshots at specific candidates' wives, they might suddenly find things heating up for them.
But the Democrats had better act fast. They never found an effective rebuttal to the Southern Strategy. Now, the coded racist appeals are pretty much obsolete, but the region is solidly Republican now. People are in the habit of voting Republican in the South. And it'll take a lot of doing for the Democrats to break that lock. If they can't rebut the gender strategy, in 30 years we might be saying the same thing about the Midwest.
By the way, I neglected to talk yesterday about the Brewers' pickup of Russ Branyan. I like Russ; I always thought he was going places, even though he never quite broke through with the Reds and Indians. He's a low-average slugger with a ton of strikeouts, and that's what we can expect from him in the future. He's 28, which means we've probably already seen what he's capable of. An All-Star Branyan is not. In all probability, he's a fourth outfielder and pinch-hitter extraordinaire.
But that's a good thing; we desperately need more power, and it never hurts to have a left-handed bench bat hanging around. More to the point, spare parts like Branyan are the kind of thing that separates potential contenders from mediocre teams. The fact that we're bringing in a guy like Russ indicates that we're starting to think of ourselves as a contender, and that's a very welcome change from the past several years. Hopefully, we'll build on this in the offseason, upping the payroll a bit and bringing in some more pieces: some more outfield power, a hot-hitting third baseman, an ace lefty reliever and a middle-of-the-rotation horse. If we spend our money wisely, I think we can get those pieces and keep our payroll in the $40-50 million range, and have a legitimate shot at the wild card next year. Hope is a beautiful, beautiful thing.
And with that, I'll wrap it up for the day. See you tomorrow!
(Cross-posted to Open Source Politics.)
Posted by Fred at July 28, 2004 03:13 PM