Say what you will about Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, you’ve got to agree that she has dominated American political discourse for the past week, ever since Arizona Sen. John McCain picked her as his vice presidential candidate on the Republican ticket.
The swirl of stories has raised many issues, including the role of candidates’ children in political campaigns. Sen. Barack Obama, the Democratic nominee, said that “people’s families are off-limits, and people’s children are especially off-limits. This shouldn’t be part of our politics. It has no relevance to Gov. Palin’s performance as governor or her potential performance as a vice president.”
His running mate, Sen. Joe Biden, agreed that “children are off-limits.”
While those are decent statements, they’re also disingenuous. All politicians are happy to display their children when they think it will help the campaign. Recall the Democratic National Convention, where Biden was introduced by one of his sons. And Obama’s cute and charming daughters talking to their father on the big screen.
You can’t really blame them. For many years, “family values” have been an issue in national politics, and naturally, candidates respond by showing us their families. Democrats want us to see that they’re not trans-gendered aliens from Alpha Centauri; Republicans want us to see that they can be warm and affectionate even when they’re otherwise tough as nails.
So politicians use their kids. And the kids use their politician parents. Does anyone seriously believe that Neil Bush would have been made director of a crooked Colorado bank in the 1980s if his father had not been vice president at the time? That his brother George could have risen to the presidency all on his own without the family connections? That Margaret Truman’s name had nothing to do with her success as an author of Washington mysteries?
How much attention should we pay to all this? In an ideal world, perhaps, none at all. Consider Franklin D. Roosevelt, one of America’s most effective presidents. His marriage to Eleanor was a sham after she discovered his affair with Lucy Mercer. But by then they had five grown children — who managed a total of 19 marriages and 15 divorces. Talk about dysfunctional.
Go back to the dawn of the republic, and you find John and Abigail Adams, as close a couple as ever graced the White House. One of their sons, John Quincy, was elected president in his own right, then continued in the House of Representatives, opposing slavery until his last breath. But another of their sons, Charles, died an alcoholic when only 30 years old. Does either son’s fate tell us anything about whether John Adams was a good president or not?
Why should we care, one way or another, about the children of candidates, if it tells us nothing about their suitability for high office?
However, if candidates presume to tell me how to conduct my marriage or raise my children, I think it’s only fair to find out whether they practice what they preach, and whether their methods are successful. If they bring it up, they deserve what can follow.
So I find it kind of refreshing that John McCain doesn’t speak much about his children, and I can’t recall seeing any of them used as campaign props.
I’d find it even more refreshing if McCain had not joked, while speaking at a Republican fundraiser a decade ago, “Why is Chelsea Clinton so ugly? Her father is Janet Reno.”
I leave Chelsea’s appearance for others to judge. But some uses of political offspring really are ugly.
Ed Quillen (ed@cozine.com) is a freelance writer, history buff, publisher of Colorado Central Magazine in Salida and frequent contributor to The Post.
