As the “Sesame Street” song goes, “One of these things is not like the others. …”
People love to play identity politics around elections, exploiting the differences of various candidates and straining to imbue them with meaningful meaning that truly means something.
Whether it’s Barack Obama’s race, Hillary Clinton’s gender, John McCain’s age or Mitt Romney’s faith, purveyors of identity politics (on both sides of the aisle) say these things will inform — for better or worse — their policies, should they become president.
The latest? Lindsey Graham, the longtime South Carolina senator, could be the first lifelong bachelor president elected since James Buchanan in 1856.
So, what does it MEAN?
Well, probably not much at all. Only Graham knows why at age 59 he has never married. Maybe he hasn’t found that special someone. Maybe he’s married to his job.
Nevertheless, the story lines aren’t hard to predict. Let’s tackle them now, so we can move on to covering Graham’s record and policies.
No, being unmarried doesn’t make Lindsey Graham a feminist.
It’s only a matter of time before someone at left-leaning Salon or right-leaning RedState (both equally plausible, which is another column altogether) insists that Graham’s unconventional lifestyle — his state of unmarriedness, and hence his pre-emptive emancipation of any would-be wife from having to play homemaker to his high-powered political career — actually makes him the next Gloria Steinem. Stop. Just stop it right now.
No wife? No kids? No headaches.
Some are already warning that Graham’s bachelor status will hurt him on the campaign trail. As Clemson University professor David Woodard, who worked on Graham’s congressional campaigns in the 1990s, told CNN:
“America elects not only a president but also a first family and a first lady. You have a little bit of an image problem there because he doesn’t have a wife and kids at home. I think that’s one thing that’s really different, and I think harmful frankly.”
Frankly, I think Americans will be relieved not to see another political wife being trotted out on the campaign trail, gritting her teeth like a ventriloquist and saying under her breath, “WhenWillThisBeOver?”
Let’s face it, some spouses aren’t naturals at shaking hands or talking to the press. Sometimes unruly kids can lead to unwanted story lines. Graham won’t have any of the headaches that the Palins did, for example.
And aren’t we just a little ashamed that we’ve become so accepting of this crass, transactional tradition of candidates using their families as proxies and props that we’ve decided it’s a detriment not to do it?
Hillary Clinton’s own strategists have admitted her infant granddaughter might help her relate more to voters. But somehow Graham not using his direct kin to win votes is the worrisome bit?
Can you have family values without a family?
Inevitably, someone will insist Lindsey Graham can’t run on family values without an actual family.
This is silly. For one, it’s not as if Graham has walked this Earth alone for the last 60 years. As he told Boston Herald radio in May, “I have family. I’m not married.” For another, having all the trappings of family hardly guarantees family values. Were Bill Clinton and John Edwards the family men they pretended to be on the campaign trail?
The odd thing is, Lindsey Graham isn’t an uninteresting candidate. His positions and his record provide plenty of fodder for the media and analysts to dissect over the coming months. He’s a U.S. senator with more than 20 years in elected office. Let’s focus on his record, not his home life.