Presidential Candidates’ Wives: Real Running Mates : 14 Women Talk About Their Roles

If Democratic Sen. Joseph Biden of Delaware were to be elected President next year, his wife plans to continue working as a high school teacher. “It’s my profession,” Jill Biden said, “and I don’t think Joe would expect me to give it up.”

Career homemaker Joanne Kemp puts “family first,” but if Rep. Jack Kemp (R-N.Y.) ends up in the White House, she expects to continue the kind of human rights work that recently took her to Moscow for a talk about Soviet Jewry with a high-ranking government official.

Jeanne Simon, a former Illinois state legislator and the wife of Sen. Paul Simon (D-Ill.), wonders about her own plans to serve as lobbyist and ombudsman if she is First Lady: “Would everybody flip out if the President’s wife went to a congressional hearing?”

Then there are those who ask, if Sen. Robert Dole (R-Kan.) becomes the next President, would he reappoint the current secretary of transportation--his wife, Elizabeth Dole?

Important Question

“I guess if John Kennedy could appoint his brother attorney general, I don’t see why the President could not appoint his spouse as a department head,” said Washington pollster Peter Hart, who has worked for Walter Mondale and other major political figures. “It would be unorthodox, to say the least. But it’s an important question.”

Important questions--and the right responses--have become daily fare for the wives of the 14 most active contenders for the 1988 presidential nomination. For the most part, the women are political spouses who are no longer limited to “ladies only” audiences, powerful partners who make no secret of their involvement in issues, and de facto political advisers who feel comfortable admitting both their influence on their husbands and their own ambitiousness.

There are still the pictures posed in pork producers’ aprons. “I know, it’s awful,” Simon said on her way to do just that. And Kemp is still forthcoming with her brownie recipe. Biden, Kitty Dukakis and Hattie Babbitt spend more time campaigning in day care centers, the traditional spouses’ purview, than their husbands do. But today, the role of the candidate’s wife goes beyond the ceremonial and includes speaking for her husband, not merely about him.

In that role, these women are tirelessly tromping from state to state during the many months of the campaign, crisscrossing the country while tackling the same substantive issues that confront their candidate husbands. As a group, they are focused on the single track that leads to the White House; yet their personal profiles are vastly diverse.

Various Backgrounds

Four are attorneys: Simon, 65; Dole, 51; Elise du Pont, 52, wife of Republican hopeful Pierre S. du Pont IV; and Babbitt, 39, wife of Democratic hopeful and former Arizona Gov. Bruce Babbitt. Former modern dancer Dukakis, 50, wife of Massachusetts’ Democratic Gov. Michael S. Dukakis, runs a Harvard University management-and-design program for public lands. Biden, 36, teaches teen-age patients in a locked ward of a Wilmington, Del., psychiatric hospital, and works on her master’s degree in literature at Villanova University at night. One-time newspaper photographer Tipper Gore, 38, has written a book about her national crusade against sex and violence in rock music, which some say has given her as high a profile as her presidential candidate husband, Tennessee Democratic Sen. Albert Gore Jr. Barbara Bush, 62, the wife of Vice President George Bush, has made countless public appearances in her campaign against illiteracy and on behalf of other civic endeavors. Jane Gephardt, 45, wife of Missouri Democratic Rep. Richard Gephardt, was among a delegation of congressional spouses including Simon and Kemp at a recent Soviet Jewry meeting of diplomats in Vienna.

Some candidates’ wives still adhere to a more traditional role. Perennial charity board chairman Carol Laxalt, 44, is organizing fund-raisers for her husband, former Sen. Paul Laxalt (R-Nev.). Patricia Haig, 58, has been a homemaker since she dropped out of college to marry Alexander Haig in 1950. Quips military wife Haig, “My major project in life was moving.”

Dede Robertson, the 59-year-old wife of television evangelist Marion (Pat) Robertson, also a Republican candidate, is probably the most socially and politically conservative of all the wives. Yet, she has a master’s degree from Yale in nursing, has attended women’s conferences in Central and South America and, despite her husband’s publicly stated view that husbands should be “high priests” of families, contends that “Pat would not make any major steps unless I was in complete agreement with him. We make decisions together.”

Attorney and former Agency for International Development administrator Du Pont, wife of the former Republican governor of Delaware, was herself an unsuccessful candidate for Delaware’s sole seat in Congress in 1984. She is expected to start campaigning for her husband in the fall.

Jacqueline Jackson, 43, an active campaigner for the Rev. Jesse Jackson in 1984 and a volunteer for an international project called Africare, also is expected to start stumping for her husband in the fall.

Bush, Jackson, Dole, Laxalt and Du Pont declined requests to be interviewed for this story.

Jackson is the only one of seven Democratic presidential candidates’ wives to decline an invitation to today’s Democratic First Ladies Forum in Des Moines. In itself, this first-ever event, sponsored by the Iowa Democratic Party, represents a new acknowledgment of the First Lady’s increasingly significant role.

Brief Glimpses

“You look at the wives,” Iowa Democratic party spokesman Phil Roeder said of the six women who are expected to offer 5-to-10-minute glimpses of their potential agendas as First Lady, “and any one of them would be qualified to hold very high political office in their own right.”

Substantive more than decorative, the wives’ efforts are “completely different even from 1984,” said Tim Archie, a campaign staffer for Sen. Robert Dole.

In fact, campaigning outside Arizona an average of 3 1/2 days a week, Babbitt echoes Dukakis, among others, when she calls herself “a surrogate” for her husband.

“People get a glimpse of the personality of the candidate,” Babbitt said as she prepared to talk about national health care, the environment and distribution of tax dollars at a senior citizens’ center in Berlin, N.H.

The expanded role played by these wives take a personal toll in time spent away from the family as well as the workplace. From her kitchen in Bethesda, Md., Kemp confided that one reason she has not traveled for her husband more often is that she hates to leave 16-year-old James, youngest of their four children, at home alone.

On her seventh trip to Iowa since her husband declared for the presidency, Dukakis conceded that “there is a time problem” for the candidate’s wife who is also employed outside the home. Dukakis has trimmed her job at Harvard down to two days a week. Biden decided to forgo her usual summer school teaching. Gore cut short her promotional book tour. Trial lawyer Babbitt said she has been “cutting back” on her case load at the Phoenix law firm of Robbins & Green.

“I can practice law for 40 years,” she added at the Boston airport, boarding yet another tiny airplane for yet another series of small gatherings with potential supporters in New Hampshire. “This is running for the presidency of the United States. This does not come along every day.”

Tipper Gore agreed. “One could resent it,” said Gore, who halted plans to promote her book, “Raising PG Kids in an X-rated Society,” and long ago abandoned plans to be a child psychologist, opting to aid her husband’s political career and raise their four children. “In a perfect world you would always have equalization of sacrifice, but you just don’t. It (his running for President) is more important than the opportunity I had with the book. . . . If he were a nuclear physicist, I really couldn’t share his work. In politics, you can. From the very beginning we have approached it as an extension and a reflection of our relationship.”

Dukakis openly takes credit for persuading her husband to enter the race. In Leon, Iowa, she told a breakfast gathering, “This was the first place I came with Michael in Iowa while he was trying to make up his mind (whether to run). I had already made up my mind.”

Giving up a law career and her seat in the Illinois legislature when she married then-fellow state legislator Paul Simon, Jeanne Simon said, “His career is my career.”

Were she First Lady--a title she dislikes so much she is having the Smithsonian Institution research its origins--Simon, an advocate of issues ranging from mine safety to women’s education, envisions serving as an adviser to her husband, much as she has throughout his political career. She has dubbed their candidacy, “Simon and Simon,” and during the campaign she has been advising him to talk more about women’s issues, among other things. She does not hesitate to express her opinions publicly, even though candid political wives are sometimes considered a liability.

“If I were told to shut up, I don’t think I could,” Simon said.

Kemp also takes advantage of the influence that comes with her domestic turf, and often discusses her views on human rights matters with her husband’s colleagues at home in Washington. After all, she said, “every congressional wife is a lobbyist.”

At least four times in recent years, Kitty Dukakis has testified on Capitol Hill about refugees and immigration policies. Though she pointed out that “it is very difficult to define the boundaries for this kind of position,” Dukakis said she would continue to speak up for her causes should her husband be elected President, reasoning, “My husband can accept my lobbying, or he can choose not to.”

Ironically, Democrat Dukakis is quick to “applaud” the kind of policy participation Nancy Reagan has practiced since her husband took office. “Any couple who is close, whether political or corporate leaders or farmers, the spouses are going to get involved in each other’s lives,” Dukakis said as she headed to another rural county on the back roads of Iowa. “I consider what Nancy Reagan did as an enormous help not only to her husband, but also to the American people.” Biden also would not hesitate to make her views on staff known. “If I’m not going to protect Joe,” she said, “who is?”

‘The Steel Magnolia’

Many political observers faulted Nancy Reagan for excessive influence on her husband, most notably when she was charged with engineering the ouster of White House chief of staff Donald T. Regan. Ten years ago, Rosalynn Carter also drew criticism and earned the sobriquet “the Steel Magnolia” when she attended Cabinet meetings.

But political analyst Norm Ornstein, a resident scholar at Washington’s American Enterprise Institute, calls Carter and Reagan important transitional figures in public expectations of the political wife. Indeed, Ornstein said, “The experience of both . . . has sensitized people to the fact that you elect a team, not just President and vice president.”

In the current presidential campaign, Ornstein said, “We see a very, very interesting change.” From the campaign’s outset, “we see the potential First Ladies out there, representing very different things but with some real sensitivity paid to what they’re doing and what role they will play.”

Fielding questions about Star Wars, environmental issues, trade embargoes, the deficit, immigration, refugees, homelessness, child care and public health policy, the spouses are also ready with meaty replies to the frequent questions on what they would pay attention to as First Ladies.

“Human rights violations around the world,” both Gephardt and Kemp said.

“Raising women’s self-esteem and getting them out of poverty,” Robertson said.

“Children, the environment and education,” Babbitt said.

“The vulnerable of our population--children, the elderly and the homeless,” Gore said.

As the early candidates strive for the all-important political prize of name recognition, Elizabeth Dole, on a campaign swing with her husband last weekend in Huntsville, Ala., received a standing ovation from the State Federation of Republican Women. As all the candidates work to woo the Southern vote, often searching for a Southern running mate, Dole says he has a “secret weapon” in his wife, a North Carolina native and Duke University graduate who speaks with a pleasingly Southern accent.

Tipper Gore already made headlines two years ago when she squared off with rocker Frank Zappa at a Congressional hearing about sex and violence in rock music. Sipping iced tea at her kitchen table in Virginia recently, she acknowledged that her husband “needs to catch up to me in some areas of the country. They know me and they don’t know him. He thinks that’s funny.”

Although Gore’s views on rock music are controversial, she believes the effect on her husband’s candidacy “has been in the positive column.” But some political observers think her outspokenness may hurt her husband, particularly with members of the Los Angeles entertainment industry who are looking for places to plunk their money after the infamous exit of Gary Hart.

The flap over Hart and his relationship with actress-model Donna Rice apparently has helped sanction a new kind of scrutiny. Increasingly, the wives are finding themselves the subjects of deeply personal questions.

‘Important to Look’

“It’s justified,” Gephardt said. “When you’re talking about the highest office of the land, people want to know the character of the man or woman. The character should be one we can emulate. In that respect, it’s important to look as closely as we can.”

When Babbitt is asked what she calls the “A” (for adultery) question, “I say, ‘I don’t think it’s an appropriate question.’ In some polite way I say it’s not their business.”

Dukakis has taken to freely talking about how she kicked her 26-year addiction to prescription diet pills. And as for persistent rumors that her husband had been involved in a homosexual relationship, Kemp said, “That just goes with the territory. I let it roll off.” The decade-old rumors have been denied by Kemp and have long been considered unfounded by most political observers.

Asked once in a live television interview if there were any skeletons in the family closet, Simon was momentarily flustered but gathered herself to reply, “Grandma Simon makes wine in the cellar.”

Career Wife in White House

One question surfacing for the first time is whether a First Lady will hold a paying job outside the government while her husband is in office. “Sooner or later we’re going to have a President with a career wife or husband,” said William Schneider, a Times political analyst and a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, “and people will suddenly realize that it is inappropriate to ask the spouse to give up the career.”

So far, only Biden has stated categorically that she intends to work if her husband is elected President. “Lotsa luck” was Sheila Tate’s comment. The former press secretary to Nancy Reagan added that, in addition to the fact that students and teachers would have to be checked constantly for weapons, in general “Whoever is the first will be miserable and will create all kinds of sensations, make all kinds of errors; but maybe that’s what it will take to change expectations.”

Biden said, “I’m sure I’ll be criticized for one thing or another, so I think I should do what I want to do. Some people think it can’t be done and that it’s not something that’s possible. But I think it can.” Biden also said she and her husband would have a day care center in the White House.

Would Drop Law

Although it “literally never occurred” to her to stop practicing law when her husband became governor of Arizona, Babbitt said she suspects she will put her own profession in limbo should her family relocate to Pennsylvania Avenue. “Washington does not need another lawyer,” she said. “I can guarantee you I can find a way to be more useful than taking depositions.”

As they pioneer this partnership approach to the presidency, the wives sometimes stumble. “Some days she’s good, some days she’s awful,” said an aide to one of the candidates. Many of the wives scramble to learn the details of their husbands’ stands on issues, scheduling regular briefings with staff members. “I have had to learn quite a bit on his stands and issues because I wasn’t sure of all his different stands,” said Gephardt, who once said at a press conference that her husband was against Star Wars, when in fact he had voted for Star Wars research but says he is against deploying the space-based missile system. Asked by a reporter how her husband would handle the Persian Gulf situation, Biden paused and declined to answer, saying, “That’s today’s briefing.” Gephardt also took an eight-week speech course at the Capitol Speakers Club to help overcome her shyness.

Others take a less aggressive, more traditional approach to the rigors of campaigning. “Some couples are real partnerships where the wife’s intellect and background are equal to their husband’s,” said Patricia Haig, interviewed in the Haigs’ Virginia home. “With me, it’s always been support, to manage as much of our family affairs as I can without disturbing him, to travel with him and be companionable. I would not be presenting Gen. Haig’s issues (to audiences). He does that much better than I do. It’s complicated and I’m not an expert in these matters.”

Despite the staggering demands placed on all the wives, many say they are discovering hidden rewards from what heretofore has been seen as a grueling ordeal much like voluntarily plunging into a meat grinder. Over and over, in Iowa village after New Hampshire township, they use terms like “growth experience” to describe the campaign process. Said Babbitt, who had just lost her luggage, “It’s fun.”

Said Gephardt, “What you get out of it ultimately is a feeling of self-confidence, a feeling of accomplishment, making a contribution on my own to his campaign. You don’t feel like just a shadow of your husband.”