Campaign Tip: Hands Off the Wife

Democratic consultant Hilary Rosen's remark that Ann Romney has no standing to talk about women’s concerns about the economy because she “hasn’t worked a day in her life” was a singularly unproductive comment. It brought the expected response from Mrs. Romney – that raising five children is real work, and that women should learn to respect each other’s choices, both of which are fair.

This all reminds me of a dust-up in a campaign for Congress a while back in the district I used to live in. The incumbent Republican congressman was considered vulnerable to a strong challenge from a celebrity Democrat (an actor in a popular long-running TV series). The Democrat’s campaign leveled a charge that the Republican incumbent’s wife got favorable terms on a bank loan because of her husband’s membership on a banking committee in Congress.

The actor’s campaign stepped on a land mine with that one. The incumbent’s wife, as it happened,  ran a multimillion-dollar business that had been in her family long before she married the congressman, who was not nearly as wealthy as she. She responded that if she had ever wanted a favorable bank loan, she hardly needed her husband’s help to get it. The charge blew up in the Democratic challenger’s face and very likely cost him the election.

As for not having a “day job,” well, I suspect there are quite a few folks of both sexes who would be just thrilled not to have to work a day in their lives, right?