By Tina Brown

Thursday, January 29, 2004; Page C01

The wives of the Democratic candidates have been something of a visual relief to those of us who have overdosed on fabulousness. Enough of the long, waxed legs of the Oscars and the silk-sheathed golden globes of the Golden Globes, enough of Paris, Nicole, J. Lo and Jennifer. Here come the worthy women of politics.

Teresa Heinz Kerry, Judith Steinberg Dean, Elizabeth Edwards, Gert Clark -- they're post-Hillarys aiming to be post-Lauras. They're none of them cupcakes, but they don't pretend to bake cupcakes either. None of them seems to harbor fantasies of being Assistant President, but they're all women of substance with lives and careers of their own.

There is such a surfeit of glitz imagery we have started to forget what a real middle-aged woman looks like except on the news (or, some of us, when we look in the mirror). The Democratic primaries are news, of course, but they are also the political version of "American Idol." So we're inevitably conditioned to view Teresa, Judith, Elizabeth and Gert through the same ferocious glamour lens.

It's a blast to see women who are handsome rather than hot -- like Gert Clark, a statuesque military blonde who strides into a small Manhattan fundraiser loaded for bear. It's refreshing to see Elizabeth Edwards's big, concerned face blown up even bigger on a TV screen usually filled with post-adolescent midriffs. It's intriguing to see Teresa Heinz Kerry on "Hardball" with her sleepy, sexily accented voice, using practiced older-woman charm to deflect Chris Matthews's hunger for a gaffe. (Come on, Teresa, let's make some news here!) While Matthews keeps on yelling like an overexcited husband, Teresa metaphorically yawns and turns over in bed.

On TV, of course, it all comes down to hair. During the week before the New Hampshire vote, Judy Steinberg Dean traded in getting trashed as an "absentee wife" for getting trashed as an absentee from the beauty salon. The modern female condition is to be constantly engaged in Wars of Ambivalence. Dr. Steinberg's decision to pursue her own medical career and opt out completely from her husband's political life until his candidacy went Code Blue brought a raging, retro dose of female-choice neurosis. Professional women who juggle jobs and kids and wanted to be supportive of her stand were surprised to hear themselves shrieking across the dinner table, "Can't she just go be a doctor some other time?" The anxiety to beat Bush trumped long-standing feminist imperatives. Even if you were in the pro-Judith camp, it was tiring to have to pretend she'd be running some outpatient clinic in the White House basement.

That changed when she hit New Hampshire. Mr. Dr. Dean's stabilization after the Iowa free fall -- enough, at least, to come in "a solid second" in the first real primary -- could largely be attributed to Mrs. Dr. Dean's last-minute appearance on the hustings.

Diane Sawyer's "Primetime" interview with the Deans -- his campaign flooded New Hampshire with videocassettes of it -- helped make the press meanies pipe down. The sane, unpretentious country doctor with the sweet smile, who is clearly cherished by her temperamental husband, gave spiky female journalists a sudden rush of shame. Metropolitan women in their fifties are tyrannized by the onerous liberation of having to look great all the time. Even Katie Couric, the "Today" show's longtime girl-next-door, has lately lengthened her perky bob into long, swingy Hollywood tresses. Judith Dean's appearance, in contrast, was a startling pause in all that. "I'm not a 'thing' person," she told a nation whose favorite new magazine, Lucky, is all about shopping. A woman as unmaterialistic as this is a crash course in Values Education.

For about 10 minutes. In a media culture as intense as America's, it's too late to be real. We are all California now. It's more authentic nowadays to color your hair than to refuse to do so. Mrs. Dean in that sense remains an endearing original for whom nothing could seem more nightmarish than the White House. (But to be able to afford cable TV and choose not to have it -- that's un-American!)

If Sen. John Kerry maintains his momentum, watch the whisper sisters focus on Teresa Heinz Kerry. "Howard Dean in haute couture," began the next bitchfest news cycle from Michelle Malkin in yesterday's New York Post. Malkin was picking up on months of mumbling that Teresa Kerry -- a Washington fixture for years in her first marriage to the late Republican senator John Heinz -- was a "walking time bomb," a bundle of overbearing strong opinions and exotic unpredictability who kept straying off-message into areas like Botox, prenups and other minefields of the rich and famous. But she seems to play better on Broadway than inside the Beltway. Her international background (born in Mozambique, studied in South Africa and Switzerland), her widowhood from Heinz, her smart philanthropy, her playful candor with the press all give her texture. Apparently she plays pretty well on Main Street, too. After years of Laura Bush's controversy-free appropriateness, could we use a teeny bit of edge?

At the movies this winter we worshiped Helen Mirren's seasoned sex appeal in "Calendar Girls" and fell in love all over again with Diane Keaton looking divine at 57 in "Something's Gotta Give." So it goes with Teresa Kerry. We are all less censorious about Botox now. At the age of 65 she can sashay down the aisle of the campaign plane in a Chanel pantsuit and filmy white blouse. In more ways than one, she can afford to be herself.