December 20, 1999
Web posted at: 10:50 a.m. EST (1550 GMT)

Ernestine Bradley compares campaigning for her husband, Bill, to walking a tightrope: Take one step at a time. Don't look ahead.

Her caution is understandable. Spouses of presidential candidates must perform a delicate balancing act.

They are expected to say nice things about their mates as they expose their private lives to public scrutiny, but they can get into trouble if they try to speak for the candidates.

They are on safe ground promoting education, health care and charitable causes. However, they risk controversy if they seem to go beyond the role of supportive spouse. They don't want to draw the kind of fire that Hillary Clinton did during the 1992 campaign.

Bradley was on the tightrope again this month, making several stops in eastern Iowa while her husband, a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, was campaigning elsewhere.

"I see myself in this campaign as a kind of goodwill ambassador," said Ernestine Bradley, a college professor who took a leave of absence last May to join her husband's campaign.

Some 20 years ago, before Bill Bradley won the first of three Senate terms from New Jersey, she felt spouses of candidates shouldn't play any campaign role "because voters vote for the candidate and what the candidate stands for. It has taken me a while to learn that the political culture simply expects the spouses to be part of it."

Bradley is not the only spouse venturing out on the sometimes hazardous campaign trail. Tipper Gore, a veteran campaigner for Vice President Al Gore, a Democrat, and Laura Bush, the wife of Texas Gov. George W. Bush, a Republican, also have been making solo campaign trips to Iowa.

In a departure from traditional gender roles, Bob Dole, the former Kansas senator and 1996 Republican presidential nominee, stumped for his wife, Elizabeth, before she withdrew from the Republican race in October.

Bob Dole quickly learned how tricky it can be as the candidate's spouse. if Elizabeth Dole became the first woman to be elected president, "I'd be the 'first man.' I don't know what I'd do, but I guess somebody would tell me what to do," he quipped during one Des Moines visit.

Other spouses of Republican candidates have accompanied them to the state, which kicks off the presidential nomination process with the Jan. 24 precinct caucuses at neighborhood meeting places.

"I slept well last night, and I'm sure I'll sleep well tonight," said Tipper Gore on a campaign tour through Iowa last month that jammed in 15 receptions, school assemblies and other events in 10 cities over three days.

The vice president "can't be in every place that he'd like to be," she said. "I ask for every person's vote, to please vote for him. That's something that I can do, and I do the best I can."

Expectations for the spouses of presidential candidates have grown with the influence of television and the more prominent campaign roles they have played in the last decade, said Dianne Bystrom, director of the Carrie Chapman Catt Center for Women and Politics at Iowa State University,

They can be effective surrogates for candidates trying to campaign in several states, she said. They embody reassuring values of home and family. The women may be able to help their husbands connect with women voters.

They also arouse curiosity because they are just a step or two from occupying the White House.

That was true of Ernestine Bradley's meeting this month with a group of German-Americans from the Davenport area, who were eager to show her a historic building being restored as a German-American heritage center.

They listened intently as Bradley, a German immigrant, talked about coming to this country when she was 21. They laughed as she exchanged a greeting in German.

Harlan Meier, a retired farmer from Davenport who buttonholed Bradley to tell her about the importance of ethanol, was won over by her charm.

"I think she would make a great first lady. I think she will bring a lot of wholesomeness, and I'm a Republican," Meier said.

Bradley, perhaps concerned about her footing on that presidential tightrope, declined to say what her goals would be if she became first lady. "There is so much that can be done. . . . I am not worried that I would sit there and twiddle my thumbs."

Other spouses were equally skittish when asked about their plans if their husbands won in November. They especially shied away from comparing themselves with the current first lady, Hillary Clinton.

Laura Bush said she believes Americans give first ladies a lot of leeway. "Any first lady can do whatever they want to do. In this country, people expect them to work on whatever they want or to have a career of their own," she said.

Clinton and former first lady Barbara Bush, Laura Bush's mother-in- law, offered a generational contrast.

Barbara Bush kept a lower profile. She championed the cause of literacy while performing the traditional roles of hostess and presidential escort, said ISU's Bystrom.

Clinton had a high-powered career as a lawyer. Her activist agenda, feminist views and involvement in her husband's career have drawn both admiration and scorn.

She was less in the media spotlight during her husband's re-election campaign in 1996. She spoke out "on such traditional first lady concerns as families and children," says "The Electronic Election," a book co-edited by Bystrom.

Cindy McCain, the wife of U.S. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., stresses children's health-care needs. Tipper Gore was an early proponent of parental warning labels for music. Now, she focuses on mental health issues and homelessness.

Ernestine Bradley and Laura Bush, a former elementary school teacher and librarian, have an obvious interest in education.

Bush said she enjoys campaigning. However, voters apparently won't be seeing much of the Bushes' twin daughters, who are finishing their senior year of high school.

"They're not running for anything, and if we use them a lot in our television ads, it makes them look like they are more accessible to the media, and they are not," said Laura Bush in an interview. "They're perfectly happy living their own life."

The spouses speak up

Here are a few observations from some of the spouses of presidential candidates:

Laura Bush on giving her husband Texas Gov. George W. Bush advice: "I really don't try to give him a whole lot of advice, just like I wouldn't really like it if he gave me a whole lot of advice."

Monday, December 20, 1999

• Juanita Broaddrick sues Clinton Administration over alleged 'smear campaign'
• Video: Bush, Gore fight insurgent rivals
• Clinton shops online for the first time
• Gore's international affairs knowledge has plusses, minuses
• McCain, Forbes favor keeping 'don't ask, don't tell' policy
• Des Moines Register: Campaign cash -- Who gets what, and from whom?
• Clinton Administration wants to double funding to trace gun criminals
• Reagan's condition deteriorates
• Des Moines Register: Candidate mates tread lightly
• Bush says he doesn't believe federal report on Texas hunger
• Trump to visit Ventura in January
• McCain criticizes Clinton's national forest order
• McCain addresses health care, terrorism
• McCain works on tax break package for teachers
• Searching for a way to make history forget impeachment
• From White House to schoolhouse, billionaire exerts power behind the scenes
• Bradley support rising in Iowa, new poll says
• Gore repeats no ad offer, Bradley repeats "no"
• McCain campaign raises $1 million in a week
• Barbara Bush says keep abortion off party platform

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