First Ladies in Waiting

The contest between Senators Barack Obama and John McCain presents the U.S. with one of its starkest choices ever, between old and young, Black and White, conservative and liberal and someone born into privilege against an opponent raised by a single mother on food stamps. An equally sharp contrast can be observed of their spouses. The backgrounds of the two aspiring First Ladies are even further apart than their husbands.

Mrs. McCain was born into wealth as the daughter of an Arizona beer baron whose company, Hensley & Co, became one of the country’s biggest distributors of Budweiser. When he died in 2000, Mrs. McCain inherited control of the business. While she leaves day-to-day management to others, Mrs. McCain plays an active role in strategic planning. It is not known how much of the company she owns but analysts believe her stake is worth at least $100 million. In spite of this, Mrs. McCain comes across as a traditional politician’s spouse (trophy wife). At campaign events, she introduces her husband with a glowing account of his qualities as a father before standing dutifully to his side as he gives his stump speech. Dressed invariably in an expensive pantsuit without a strand of blond hair out of place, she nods in agreement and laughs at his jokes. Friends say Mrs. McCain did not relish the prospect of her husband making a second run after his bitter defeat to President Bu$h in 2000, when opponents waged a dirty tricks campaign during the South Carolina primary. A leaflet was distributed showing a picture of Senator McCain with a dark-skinned baby it claimed he had fathered illegitimately. In fact, the child was the McCains’ daughter, Bridget, whom they adopted from a Bangladeshi orphanage. Like Laura Bush, Mrs. McCain displays no ambition to play a policymaking role. “I think the American people still truly want a traditional family in the White House,” she said last year.

That might disqualify Michelle Obama. A working Black mother-of-two from an unflashy Chicago background, Mrs. Obama is in many respects as self-made as her husband. Majoring in sociology from Princeton and going on, like her husband, to study law at Harvard, Mrs. Obama gives speeches with a command that has won over many voters. In Iowa, which staged the first contest in the primary season and which Senator Obama won, his campaign dubbed Michelle “the [deal] closer”. Unlike Mrs. McCain, who prefers to be out of the limelight, Mrs. Obama follows a separate schedule of between two and four days a week, depending on whether the two young daughters are off from school. She has also retained her $320,000-a-year job as a community and public relations officer for Chicago University Hospitals. Michelle likes to interact with small gatherings of voters and have free-flowing exchanges of views. But Mrs. Obama’s very ease of conversation has also landed her in hot water. Opponents have focused on her observation that America has become a “mean-spirited country” in which most people are struggling to make ends meet and her statement “for the first time in my adult lifetime, I am really proud of my country, not just because Barack has done well, but because I think people are hungry for change.”

Some fear the election could descend into racial overtone in much the same way that Michael Dukakis, the 1988 Democratic contender and then governor of Massachusetts, was targeted by the infamous “Willie Horton” attack ad, in which a Black offender in his state committed rape and murder when on furlough. It has already started. In an insulting commentary, Bill O’Reilly, the Fox News anchor, responded to Mrs. Obama’s “pride” remarks by saying: “I don’t want to send out a lynching party against Michelle Obama unless there’s hard evidence that this is the way she really feels.”

It is hard to imagine Cindy McCain generating as much abuse or adulation as Michelle Obama. Yet she has her vulnerabilities. There is her drug episode in the 1990s when she became addicted to painkillers after back surgery in 1989 and fed her habit by stealing pills from a medical charity she had founded. She confessed to her husband after the Drug Enforcement Administration launched an investigation into her charity and became a regular at Narcotics Anonymous. (Sure she is not a politician, confessing after you get caught.) There has also been scrutiny of the McCain marriage, after The New York Times published allegations of a close relationship between Senator McCain and a female lobbyist. But the most enduring focus is on Mrs. McCain’s refusal to disclose her tax returns. “This is a privacy issue,” she said recently, explaining that she and her husband had always kept separate finances. “I am not the candidate.” Many compare her stance to that of Teresa Heinz Kerry, the wealthy spouse of the 2004 Democratic candidate, John Kerry, who was eventually persuaded into disclosing her returns. Questions have also arisen about Senator McCain’s use of his wife’s corporate plane; a loophole that allows candidates to reimburse only the cost of a first-class fare.