Few Political Families as Usual Here

Dennis J. Kucinich, on the phone en route to a campaign event, is annoyed. The Ohio representative and presidential hopeful, twice divorced and currently single, is fresh off a date organized by a website trying to find him a new wife. His romantic track record raises a fairly obvious, if irritating, question: Could Americans have a problem voting for a man who has trouble staying married?

“First of all,” he replies tersely, “I would take issue with the way you characterize it.”

So many Americans have experienced divorce, he says, that they are careful about judging others. “What I think happens,” he says, “is that the ... family is being redefined.”

Looking at this season’s crop of Democratic presidential aspirants, one would be hard-pressed to argue the point. Before Carol Moseley Braun quit the race Thursday, the nine contenders accounted for five divorces (Kucinich’s two and one each for Braun, John F. Kerry and Joe Lieberman). Also, there were two unpartnered candidates (Kucinich, Braun), two with stepchildren (Kerry, Lieberman) and one with an openly gay daughter (Dick Gephardt). Fertility treatments allowed John Edwards’ wife to have a baby after 50. Howard Dean and his wife, Judith Steinberg, practice different religions -- Steinberg is Jewish; Dean views himself as a Congregationalist. Steinberg intends to continue practicing medicine even if her husband becomes president. And she and Al Sharpton’s wife, Kathy Jordan, did not take their husbands’ last names. Only one family seems to fit an ultra-traditional mold -- Wesley K. Clark’s.

This, as social historian Barbara Dafoe Whitehead put it, “is family diversity to the max.”

With a high divorce rate, remarriage and “blended” families a fact of life, two-job households the norm and a culture that is more accepting of homosexuality, the candidates seem to be holding up a mirror to America.

“In the realm of private life ... the American people accept a lot of differences that they wouldn’t have in the past,” Whitehead said.

However, anything does not go for those running for office.

“The clearest line I can see now concerning what the American people will not accept is perhaps an openly gay president,” said Bruce Buchanan, a University of Texas expert on presidential politics. “We used to wonder if people would elect a president who smoked, or was divorced, or was a Catholic. I think what shook us up was [President] Clinton’s escapade. And yet, he not only survived, but flourished.”

Ah, the Clintons. Ever they loom over the U.S. sociopolitical landscape. In eight bumpy White House years, the couple left a mark on the electorate that shows no sign of fading more than three years, a terrorist attack and two wars later. Adultery: bad, but not a career ender. The two-career political family: Hillary in 2008? A co-presidency: Don’t push it.

“Whether people like Hillary or not, the Clintons established the idea that presidents’ wives weren’t going to be in every case the hostess for the White House,” said Whitehead. In a presidential race, she added, having a loyal wife at one’s side has become “an elective, not a requirement.”

Dean, who practiced medicine in Vermont with Steinberg for 10 years, has been adamant about his wife’s right to choose her own path, which thus far has meant almost no campaigning and few interviews for her.

“I do not intend to drag her around because I need a prop on the campaign trail,” Dean said recently. “There’s not that element of self-sacrifice for career that is there in some political families.... I think giving up her medical practice is a lot to ask, and I am not going to do that.”

This is an attitude that has widespread support, even in some unlikely quarters.

A first lady who balances an outside career with the job’s ceremonial requirements “would be an interesting experiment, and in some ways a welcome experiment,” said Glenn Stanton, a senior analyst for marriage and sexuality at Focus on the Family, an evangelical ministry that is, at the moment, working against gay marriage. “There are people making marriage and family work wonderfully with two working people. Even the president and his wife can do that.”

Some political experts say Steinberg’s profession is an important part of why Americans would probably not be conflicted over her desire to keep working.

“It’s far more acceptable to have a profession that is perceived as altruistic,” said Celinda Lake, a Democratic pollster. “Having a wife who is a doctor is a plus.”

And there is certainly a precedent: On the popular TV show “The West Wing,” the wife of the Democratic president is a physician. Lake’s polling shows that Democratic primary voters are “big ‘West Wing’ watchers.” (They also love National Public Radio.)

Though Lake considers the coincidence merely an “ironic parallel” -- Steinberg was practicing medicine years before producer Aaron Sorkin dreamed up the Bartlets -- others find deeper meaning.

“Popular culture is really the bible that people read about their values ... and it shapes them enormously,” said Marie Wilson, president of the Ms. Foundation, which has started a project aimed at encouraging television, movie and commercial makers to portray women in positions of power. “Having a [fictional] first lady who has her own portfolio has been helpful to American women and helpful to Howard Dean.”

Some would say that even First Lady Laura Bush, who appears to be from a very traditional mold, is not.

“Laura Bush is far under the radar,” said Wilson. “She does what she’s interested in. I don’t see her as a ceremonial first wife at all.”

Teresa Heinz Kerry, who married John F. Kerry in 1995 and took his last name only last year, surely would be a different kind of first lady. When her first husband, John Heinz, the Pennsylvania senator and ketchup heir, died in a plane crash in 1991, she inherited $600 million. Her wealth and independence have given her a certain latitude to say what she thinks.

“She really is a free agent,” said Whitehead. The Kerry campaign has “no control over her.”

Together, the Kerrys have five children; his two daughters and her three sons.

Likewise, Joe and Hadassah Lieberman, both divorced once, have a blended family. He has two children from his first marriage; she has one from hers. Their youngest child was born after they married in 1983.

Nowadays, if a single divorce no longer stigmatizes a politician (Ronald Reagan and Bob Dole divorced and remarried), what about multiple uncouplings?

“I would be uncomfortable voting for someone who was twice divorced and had trouble with ‘the relationship thing,’ ” said David Blankenhorn, president of the Institute for American Values and a self-described “marriage nut.”

Blankenhorn said he was taken aback by Kucinich’s recent quote in the New York Times that he had broken up with his girlfriend of eight years because “the partnership stuff was just too hard.”

Blankenhorn’s reaction: “This is a very immature person.”

Kucinich said his comment was “a casual remark.”

Experts also say that being unmarried remains a handicap, even for a well-known, well-financed candidate.

“Strategically, it’s hard because campaigns are still designed to have the ads finish with the intact family -- the husband and wife and two nice kids,” said Lake, the Democratic pollster.

Last year, the Gephardts expanded that notion when they sent a family Christmas card that included their adult daughter, Chrissy, with her arm around her partner, Amy Loder. Chrissy Gephardt has campaigned actively for her father, promising gay rights groups that if he is elected, they will have a friend in the White House.

This might once have been seen as fodder for conservative Republicans, but homosexuality transcends party affiliation. Vice President Dick Cheney’s daughter, Mary, is gay. And when Newt Gingrich was speaker of the House, his half-sister, Candace, actively worked for gay causes.

Still, when it comes to presidential politics, homosexuality is a touchy subject, said Stephanie Coontz, co-chair of the liberal think tank Council on Contemporary Families. “You can use a gay child to prove you are tolerant, but you can’t suggest that you would be gay yourself,” she said.

Times staff writer Matea Gold contributed to this report.