Judi Thompson and Judith Giuliani as political spouses

Back to back articles on the Republican candidates spouses in the NY Times Saturday (Thompson) and Sunday (Giuliani).

Let's start with Judith Giuliani. The NY Times article today talked about the media rollout of the candidate's wife tanking. Here's the dope:

Judith carries some distinctly un-Laura baggage. Like her husband, she has been married twice before. They also had a secret affair for a year before Mr. Giuliani announced it to the world — and to his second wife, Donna Hanover — at a news conference.

Her relations with Mr. Giuliani’s children by Ms. Hanover are by all accounts deeply strained, despite her efforts at rapprochement. And his son and daughter, ages 21 and 17, have said they do not plan to campaign for their father.

Sharply critical articles, most recently in Vanity Fair, have described Mrs. Giuliani as an imperious striver who shops extravagantly, demands a separate seat on the campaign plane for her Louis Vuitton handbag and has compiled a hit list of campaign aides she wants fired.

This spouse issue hurts Giuliani big time and won't go away. Spouses are a good way to communicate the fact that the candidate is of the people, a normal person with a family that's like anyone else's.

This dynamic is further skewed by the family-values issue-set on the Republican side. Here's what the constant harassing question will be, as expressed in the NY Times:

Mrs. Giuliani declined to comment when asked how she felt about dating a married man, or the complications involved in seeing him secretly.

This spouse issue is a big, big deal. I've posted about political spouses before, in reference to Elizabeth Edwards. The Laura Bush model is the gold standard. The spouse should take the Capitol rotunda as his/her model--nothing controversial; represent all Americans. The twofer idea was shelved by the Clinton's in 1992 when they learned quickly that it wouldn't fly. Bland, dependable, fight for causes that no one could really disagree with.

This does not appear to be totally the case either for Jeri Kehn Thompson. First of all, she's not normal-looking, with a 25-year gap between her and her husband. Second of all she's not a background figure according to recent reports. The NY Times has this:

Jack M. Burkman, a Republican strategist and lobbyist, said that Mrs. Thompson, 40, had gone from being caricatured as a trophy wife to being caricatured as an overweening micromanager. “She’s a beautiful woman, obviously, and she’s a trained political operative; the media doesn’t know how to handle that dichotomy.”

The Daily Telegraph reports this:

A campaign aide, also speaking anonymously, told The Washington Post that Mrs Thompson decided everything from the content of direct mailings to the date for her husband to make his official declaration, now expected at the end of the summer. "You name it - anything," said the aide.

Byron York complained on C-Span today that the NY Times had two attack pieces on Judith and Judi, while giving positive coverage to Elizabeth Edwards and ignoring Michelle Obama. He said there shouldn't be big pieces on the spouses at all. He followed it up by saying that the problems with the Republican candidates is that they have multiple marriages, giving the Democrats "cred" on family values. Well, then doesn't that explain why the Times would do "hit pieces" on the candidates' wives of the former party and not the latter?