Catherine Allgor On Michelle Obama's First Lady Status

Catherine Allgor, historian and expert on first ladies here at Claremont McKenna College, was quoted on post-first lady careers, the most famous of which are Eleanor Roosevelt, Lady Bird Johnson, and of course, Hillary Clinton, soon-to-Secretary-of-State.

Here is what she said. 

"First ladies from Martha Washington on have always wielded a good deal of power. Eleanor Roosevelt was a politician before the White House and had a career after, but she was never going to be president," said Allgor, who has written several books about first ladies. "Lady Bird Johnson was just as qualified as her husband but she was never going to be president. Michelle Obama is part of this new trend that, even if she doesn't run for president, she may discover a career in public service."

"I was talking with Laura Bush about how it's possible to live in the White House and have a normal life. But Mrs. Bush's idea of normal is having a lovely lunch and going shopping with her friends in Georgetown," Allgor said. "Michelle Obama's idea of a normal life is California Pizza Kitchen and Target, and I don't think she's going to be able to have that."

Although Michelle Obama spent considerable time on the campaign trail on behalf of her husband, she remained a constant in her daughters' lives in Chicago, reportedly never missing a game, recital or school event. She has said Malia, 10, and Sasha, 7, will continue to be her first priority, but also indicated that her focus as first lady will include efforts on behalf of military families and working mothers.

"Being African-American, she's going to have to talk about race, which is unfair because everybody should be talking about race," Allgor said. "But she'll do it as she did on the campaign trail, not by talking about our painful racial past and painful racial present but by talking about opportunity and children and talking about education."

It's always seemed odd to me that it's Democrat first ladies who seem to make a career of their marriages. From Woodrow Wilson's wife, who effectively ran the country after her husband's stroke to Hillary Clinton's ill-fated attempt at national health care, Democrats seem to make a mockery of the spirit and the letter of Constitution by appointing their relatives to constitutional and extraconstitutional roles. (R.F.K. and J.F.K. seems a rather clear example,  and yet the cozy relationship between Governor Jeb and President George Bush always ends up being discussed by the far left as exhibit A of the Republicans stealing the 2000 election.) 

Don't Democrats insist that a person's personal life ought to be distinct from their political life? Why then, does the personal end up becoming political in the modern era, especially with Democrats? We're expected to excuse the personal failings of Senator Edwards or Governor Spitzer, but we pry into the family life of Mayor Giuliani.  

So why don't conservative first ladies launch political careers after their husbands? Allow me to venture a guess. Conservative first ladies are much more comfortable being women behind the scenes than running the show. Or to put it more crudely: they are more comfortable wearing skirts and dresses than wearing pant suits.

On the Right, to be a conservative is to be a conservative. We don't much mind that somone is a woman or a minority -- in fact, if you really asked conservatives we have no such notions of "minority" as the very concept is antithetical to the Constitution we love. It isn't as if conservatism lacks strong women, but those women's careers exist independent of their husbands. Lady Thatcher, anyone? 

Using your husband's career to launch your own is something more common to third world, socialist countries than to the American meritocracy. As such, it was probably impossible for Hillary Clinton to be elected President. Kerry Howley of Reason Magazine put it best when she compared the rise of Sen. Clinton to that of third world leaders.

Howley wrote in June of this year for the New York Times op-ed page.

If you’ve ever wondered why India, Indonesia, Myanmar, Pakistan and the Philippines seem readier to elect women than does the United States, here’s your answer: Societies that value a candidate’s family affiliation, and therefore have a history of nepotistic succession, are often open to female leadership so long as it bears the right brand. Benazir Bhutto, Indira Gandhi and Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, among many others, slashed through gender barriers on the strength of their family names.

In the United States, where a poll last year found that 14 percent of people still admit they would not vote for a woman, nepotistic advancement for women in politics was most common early in the 20th century. As Jo Freeman, the feminist political scientist, has pointed out, six of the first 14 women elected to Congress were widows of incumbents. Three more were the daughters of politicians.

I imagine then, that it must really upset feminists to need a man like Bill Clinton or Barack Obama in order to achieve their stated goal of the first woman president. And yet it shouldn't surprise altogether either. The very idea of a political dynasty has always been more common to the Left than to the Right. True, the Bushes are the exception that proves the rule, but nearly every Bush has been distinctly different from the other. George W. Bush's grandfather, Prescott Bush, was a Northern R.I.N.O. while George H.W. Bush was a war hero and C.I.A. man, and George W. Bush and his brother,  Jeb, had distinct political acumen and styles and policy prescriptions that differed from their father's. 

All of this has gotten me off topic. If Michelle Obama were to run for office post-Obama, I don't doubt that she could on strength of name alone win higher office, but I don't think she'd go much further. She's not as likeable as her husband. Case in point: 

Obama
by krs601