Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, May 14, 1995 TAG: 9505190010
SECTION: HORIZON PAGE: B1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: SUSAN PAGE NEWSDAY
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Long
Meet Elizabeth Hanford Dole, Harvard-educated lawyer and two-time Cabinet member who now leads one of the world's biggest charities, the American Red Cross. And Wendy Lee Gramm, an economist and former head of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. And Joan Specter, small-business entrepreneur and four-term member of the Philadelphia City Council.
Since the 1992 election, Hillary Clinton has won plaudits and taken brickbats as a new breed, a careerist first lady, an openly powerful adviser to her husband and a force to be reckoned with in her own right. She often describes herself as a ``transition figure'' who just happens to be the first of a groundbreaking generation of women to fill the most traditional of political roles.
The next wave of presidential candidates' spouses would seem to prove her point. While the nine current contenders for the 1996 Republican nomination are all men - former Illinois Rep. Lynn Martin decided not to make the race - their wives include women who have advised presidents, directed bureaucracies, regulated industries, drafted federal budgets, formed and sold small businesses, and run elections.
For themselves.
``The odds that we will ever go back to the Bess Truman model of sit-there-and-keep-your-hat-on-straight-and-your-mouth-shut - that will be more the exception than the rule in the future,'' predicted Lewis Gould, a historian and editor of ``American First Ladies: Their Lives and Their Legacy,'' to be published later this year. ``Mrs. Clinton was pushing the envelope, but there are a lot of other envelope-pushers coming up in both parties.''
There is Elizabeth Dole, for instance, wife of Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole of Kansas, who is the front-runner among Republicans who want to challenge President Clinton next year. Occasionally mentioned as a potential vice presidential candidate herself, she has more executive-branch experience than her husband does, with a resume that includes service on former President Reagan's White House staff and in the Reagan and Bush Cabinets.
``Well, he's been involved in a lot of White House meetings,'' she demurred diplomatically when a reporter compared her White House experience with that of her husband.
Or Wendy Gramm, wife of Texas Sen. Phil Gramm, who is the best-financed and most aggressive conservative competitor of Dole. Before chairing the regulatory agency that monitors commodity trading, she held a senior staff job at the Office of Management and Budget, a post in the White House complex that gave her a closer look at the presidency than her husband has had.
``I know both the costs and the benefits,'' she said in an interview at campaign headquarters. ``When we all chat about it, I think, `Look, I know the costs; are you sure you really want the job?' That's what I tell Phil.''
Among the other spouses of Republican contenders, Joan Specter, wife of Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter, owned and operated three cooking schools and founded a wholesale dessert company that had sales in 28 states; she sold the business in 1988. She has been elected to four terms on the Philadelphia City Council in a political career sufficiently separate from her husband's.
Former Tennessee Gov. Lamar Alexander met his future wife, Honey Buhler, when she was a staff assistant to then-Texas Sen. John Tower; she now serves on the Corporation for Public Broadcasting board and on the board of a day-care consulting company she and her husband helped found. Conservative commentator Pat Buchanan met his wife, Shelley Scarney, when she was a receptionist in the Nixon White House. And in a power-sharing relationship that would give Hillary Clinton's harshest critics the shivers, Indiana Sen. Dick Lugar and his future wife, Charlene Smeltzer, were actually elected ``co-president'' of their senior class at Denison University.
At times, nearly all of them display the traditional sort of political wifemanship - standing by their men at their formal campaign announcements, wearing telegenically bright colors and generally keeping quiet. But Elizabeth Dole is also her husband's most trusted sounding board, and Wendy Gramm is a charter member of her husband's ``kitchen cabinet'' of senior advisers.
``I will certainly pipe up and say my two cents' worth,'' Wendy Gramm said. ``I always have, you know.''
What's more, Elizabeth Dole and Wendy Gramm in particular are seen by campaign strategists as powerful political assets - living testimony that Bob Dole may be 71 years old but nonetheless understands the pressures on modern-day working women, for example, or that Phil Gramm couldn't possibly be as mean as he sometimes seems if his spouse is so spontaneous and outgoing.
``Liddy Dole is clearly a major political asset for Bob Dole,'' said Ann Lewis, former political director of the Democratic National Committee and an occasional adviser to the Clinton White House. ``She humanizes and softens him. When she talks about him as her partner, she brings a picture of a different guy than we usually see.''
Wendy Gramm helps mute her husband's hard edges as well - ``She's sort of a character witness for Phil,'' said campaign strategist Charles Black - and her family's immigrant history has given him the most compelling story in his stump speech. A third-generation Korean-American, she would be the first non-Caucasian to serve as first lady; she and Gramm would be the first racially mixed couple in the White House.
``My wife's grandfather came to this country as a contract laborer to work in the sugarcane fields in Hawaii,'' Gramm said in his announcement speech in College Station, Texas. ``Her father became the first Asian-American ever to become an officer of a sugar company in the history of Hawaii. And my wife ... served as chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, where she regulated the trading of all commodities and commodity futures in America'' - including sugarcane.
``That's America in action.''
Of course, independent spouses can also pose risks to a political candidate. The records of Elizabeth Dole and Wendy Gramm in public office presumably will be subject to the same scrutiny as Hillary Clinton's work as a partner in the Rose Law Firm in Little Rock, Ark.; their personal finances may be examined as well. So far both women have softer public personas than Hillary Clinton.
At 58, Elizabeth Dole is known for her gracious manner, her slight Southern drawl and her careful avoidance of controversy; last month for the first time she publicly answered a question about where she stands on abortion rights. (She said she agrees with her husband's anti-abortion stance.) Wendy Gramm, 50, has a quick laugh and a rapid patter; she is a dedicated Rollerblader who last month completed a two-day trek from Houston to Austin.
Neither Elizabeth Dole nor Wendy Gramm would criticize Hillary Clinton, but they also declined to say she had provided a model they would follow.
``I think she's a very capable, very bright person,'' Elizabeth Dole said. ``I don't necessarily agree with her policy views, but I think that she really has a commitment to what she feels is best for America.'' As for the job of presidential spouse, she said, ``That's up to each individual to determine how she or he will put their imprimatur on that position. It's wide open in terms of the role you think fits best.''
Keywords:
POLITICS
by CNB