Write Naomi Wolfe, The Women Driving the 2024 Presidential Campaign

Is it trivial to weigh Laura Bush%u2019s gentle, Xanax-like demeanor, her faultless librarian%u2019s poise and sincerity, against the imperious sexuality of Teresa Heinz Kerry?

Ok, I couldn’t get any further than that, where I have to ask: “imperious sexuality”?!?

Imperious? Sure, I can see that. But “sexuality”? I just don’t see it–and I don’t mean attractiveness, or my personal reaction. I just don’t get, aside from the fact that she is female, that sexuality has to be injected into the conversation. Why must post-modernist always see sexuality?

And this has nothing to do with being prudish, either. Sometimes imperious is just imperious.

Although, there is a breath of fresh air in the piece, finally an analysis that doesn’t portray Karl Rove as The Genius Of Al Geniuses (I think Karl Rove runs a good campaign, but tire of the whole Karl Rules the World Meme):

What happened? Karen Hughes. The true genius behind the Bush success is not Karl Rove; she’s a suburban working mom in sensible shoes. It was clear from the start that Team Bush realized that the old, white, male face of the Republican Party was a recipe for losing those crucial suburban women in the swing states who are socially progressive and fiscally conservative. As long as the face of Republicanism was that of Newt Gingrich, ready to talk about women soldiers getting gynecological infections in foxholes, the GOP would face a Democratic hegemony, to paraphrase Rove, for the next twenty years.

I will say, I think she is on to something here. The “subminally cuckholding” bit may be a bit over the top, but I include it because it is part of her thesis, which I have highlighted:

The charges are sticking because of Teresa Heinz Kerry. Let’s start with “Heinz.” By retaining her dead husband’s name—there is no genteel way to put this—she is publicly, subliminally cuckolding Kerry with the power of another man—a dead Republican man, at that. Add to that the fact that her first husband was (as she is herself now) vastly more wealthy than her second husband. Throw into all of this her penchant for black, a color that no woman wears in the heartland, and you have a recipe for just what Kerry is struggling with now: charges of elitism, unstable family relationships, and an unmanned candidate.

Hillary Rodham Clinton merely insisted on using “Rodham” as part of her married name; Heinz Kerry is insisting on the primacy of another man. She could, though, have spoken about what she admires in her husband; she could have spoken about her own work in terms of service, family, and community. All those are ways of being oneself while still showing deference to women voters who are not wealthy and multilingual. I am a feminist, but I still believe that a candidate’s spouse, male or female, needs to understand something that Republicans get now but Democrats still don’t: It is not about them. [Itals here, bolding mine–Ed.] If you are a president’s wife—or husband—your life and imagery do not belong just to you. For the duration, you belong to us, and you need to reflect and respect our own aspirations and dreams.

Indeed, I think this get to the heart of what was wrong with Teresa’s convetion speech–it was far too much about her, and far too little about Kerry.

And Wolfe has an interesting, and perhaps spot-on, conclusion:

Bush knows that Laura is his outreach to that swing voter in Michigan who is juggling work and family, who wants to feel that her abortion rights are secure and her kids are safe. Whenever his anti-environment, anti-choice, anti-peace, anti-working-class-women policies obtrude onto her consciousness, all he needs to do is point to Laura; his recent stump speeches promise that if you vote for him, you get four more years of her. Who stole feminism? The Republicans. How neatly has Bush Inc. redeemed in positive terms the Clintons’ ill-conceived promise, a decade ago, that we would get “two for one.”

Update: Part of today’s OTB Traffic Jam.