All in the Family

"In this long, hot campaign season, intimations of sexuality are sprouting like wildflowers along the road to the White House. Not that the commingling of sex and politics is anything new, but for what seems to be the first time in memory, voters are being confronted with questions that don't usually break the surface: Just how sexy is a first lady allowed to be? And what constitutes an appropriate display of affection between candidates and their spouses? With a nominating field full of older men and younger wives, experts say that a youthful, even sexy wife offers a none-too-subtle message about the vitality of the candidate."

Silly me--I thought the media were sending a none-too-subtle message about their priorities.

Here's the NYT piece:

"It has not been an easy few months for Judith Giuliani. Her rollout to the public received rocky reviews from the political class, Republicans included. A series of negative articles about her shopping habits, marital past and supposedly testy relations with campaign staff followed. Her appearances alongside her husband, Rudolph W. Giuliani, grew suddenly scarce -- and some analysts suggested that she keep it that way.

"So it was perhaps no surprise that at a recent lunch in downtown Manhattan, Mrs. Giuliani offered this self-assessment: 'When it comes to politics, I'm new to this.'

"Over the course of a two-hour interview, Mrs. Giuliani, 53, talked for the first time about how she met Mr. Giuliani, 63, and about their first date. (He asked her out, she said.) But she returned again and again to her inexperience as a political wife . . .

"Not becoming a distraction to her husband, a front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination, appears to be an elusive goal."

Newsweek is on the Jeri beat:

"In Thompson's case, the powerful-spouse bit is no act. Within his still-unofficial campaign, Jeri has emerged as the would-be candidate's top political adviser and de facto campaign manager. She urged her husband to run in the first place. To prepare for the rigors of a campaign, she recruited staff, including a friend, longtime Republican PR hand Mark Corallo, to help as an unpaid spokesman.

"As the run got underway, Jeri quietly assumed responsibility for many day-to-day details, say campaign advisers who didn't want to be named talking about internal matters. She oversees her husband's travel and fund-raising events, and has the power to hire and fire staff. She also grooms Thompson's public image. When lefty filmmaker Michael Moore challenged Thompson to a debate on health care last spring, Jeri persuaded him to film a tough-guy video response that became a YouTube hit. Apparently, Jeri has not been shy about using her authority. The campaign advisers say she's smart and tireless--but her spare-no-feelings management style doesn't always have the intended effect. Last month Tom Collamore, a former Reagan aide and tobacco lobbyist hired as campaign manager, quit after what a Thompson associate called 'personality conflicts' with Jeri. Three other aides followed."

Money quote, from an unnamed Thompson adviser about his delayed entry into the race: "People are starting to wonder if she's more into this than he is."

And here's the WashPost look at the woman whose maiden name is Jeri Kehn. She "spent much of her 20s biding her time in Nashville without a clear career path, living with a boyfriend whose main claim to fame was getting arrested in Red Square for unfurling a pizza-parlor banner in the last days of the Cold War. Kehn left three court judgments behind her in Nashville, one of which remains unpaid today, and a court twice garnished her wages.