by Molly Ivors
We here at Whiskey Fire rarely have anything good to say about Republicans. They kind of suck, they're handing over our nation to the corporatists and christianists, and they have given absolute power to Sir Simon Milligan and his manservant Hecubus just to Stick It to Us Liberals. Generally speaking, I'm all in favor of negative press coverage of Republicans and their minions, and cheer it.
But I am also a woman, and as such, have been noting a pretty concerning drift in the press coverage of the Republican candidates. Yes, it's misogyny rearing its ugly head again, in a pair of stories about the trophy wives who accompany the two presumptive Republican front-runners. In each case, the wife is presented as a greedy, grasping calculator in the mode of Becky Sharp.
First, Jeri "Ta-tas" Thompson, about whom I blogged here. The NYTimes is blaming Mrs. T for the collapse of her husband's as yet nonexistent presidential campaign.
A week of personnel turnover that extended from his campaign-manager-in-waiting down to volunteers raised questions about whether the Thompson camp is prepared to jump fully into the race for the Republican presidential nomination, a race in which his rivals have had months to establish their campaign organizations, raise money and hone strategy.
It also ignited speculation in Republican circles about who is really in charge, and in particular about the extent of the role being played by Mr. Thompson’s wife, Jeri Kehn Thompson, a former political operative.
On Tuesday, Tom Collamore, a top adviser to Mr. Thompson, stepped aside. At the same time, Mr. Thompson’s political operation announced that it was bringing in Randy Enwright, a veteran Republican strategist with ties to the Bush family, and former Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham, to take over the prospective campaign. The next day, the organization’s research director quit, and other staff members walked out.
And why, you ask? What could cause Republicans to flee like amoebas on fleas on rats from the sinking ship of the Republican Great White Hope, with his smell of Aqua Velva, Cialis, and Metamucil? It's that woman!
But the recent reshuffling has left unclear what balance he is striking between a traditional campaign and something truly different. And Republicans are still trying to determine who is really calling the shots and how much power is held by Mrs. Thompson.
“It’s now become an open joke among people in the consultant community and political movers and shakers that the senator’s wife is really running the campaign,” said Tony Fabrizio, a Republican pollster and strategist. “The spouse needs to be an integral part of the campaign but it is never a good thing when the spouse runs the campaign because the spouse is never objective.”
Look, wingnuts, you can't have it both ways. If we're not allowed to call her a brainless bouncing baba, then you aren't either. But the nervousness here suggests that they're not completely convinced that Fred married her for her brilliant political mind, either.
The second is the expose of Judith "Judi Ann" Stish Ross Nathan Giuliani in the most recent Vanity Fair. It's a fairly impressive article, tracing Ms. Stish Ross Nathan (Pssst! He's Jewish!) Giuliani's life from the dead little coal town to Hazleton, PA to the fab digs on the Upper East Side. One's interpretation of this article must necessarily depend on one's attitude toward Scarlett O'Hara (h/t to ql for pointing that out): if you see Scarlett as a scheming bitch, the Machiavelli of Marrying Up, you'll probably see Judi the same way. If you see Scarlett as a scrappy kid with her eye on the main chance, I guess you might read it that way, too. But as far as I know, Scarlett made her clothes from curtains, and didn't steal them from designers, as Judi is reported to do here. Still, it's her effect on the campaign, and on Rudi's staff (change it to Rudy? Nah, I like the "i." Rudi and Judi.) which is most notable.
If Giuliani's third wife became less popular as time went on, it was in part due to the feeling that she had a private list of Rudy loyalists she wanted fired. "The atmosphere is slippery, but not always venomous," says one. "You just realize there's an agenda there: she's worming her way in so she can push you out." Papir, for instance, was fired five years ago after word got around that he had called Judith a "princess" behind her back. But there are others, two sources say, of whom she patently disapproves. "Kate Anson, his scheduler, and this was the person who was so nice to her—everyone likes her!" says one Giuliani friend, holding up fingers to enumerate those of whom Judith disapproves. "Matt Mahoney [now deputy senior political adviser]—he loves Rudy. And Tony Carbonetti too, that's the other person Judith hates.… He would never be confrontational. His job is Rudy." A shrug. "Anyone supportive of him, close to him—Judith wants them fired. A lot of the senior staff … She just gets furiously jealous and treats them like shit!"
Now, I have no problem believing the very worst of both of these women, since each have sold their souls to the Republican machine. They're also both improbably taut and put-together (I can vouch, for example, that one looks much worse at 8 months postpartum than at a week, yet there's Jeri in all her glory), which bespeaks a staff and nothing much to do but manage their husbands. But that's a function of economics as much as personality. (My ex-MIL, who my ex referred to as a Stepford Hostess, was very much in the mode of the Jeris and Judis of the world, though a good old NYC liberal.)
A photo essay, for comparative purposes.
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Princesses galore! (Note that Scarlett is not hanging off the arm of her man.)
Nevertheless, I can't help but identify the pattern, which I expect is some sort of a preemptive strike against Hillary Clinton, of focusing on female ambition as practiced through sexuality. After all, we know Hillary married well, that she's done the wife thing (remember when she was forced to produce a cookie recipe to confirm her feminine bona fides?), and that she's now, in a most unseemly and unfeminine way, seeking the presidency. If she hadn't married the Big Dog, after all, who would she be?
Well, the answer is that she very well might be the junior senator from NY, though she probably would have achieved that goal through a white shoe law firm rather than a lifetime of public service. I don't, as it happens, think that Hillary is our best candidate, but I'm on guard against the knee-jerk reaction that women with ambition are necessarily evil bitches out to castrate the country. And that's true whether you happen to be a presidential candidate or the wife of a presidential candidate.
