Smart and shiny candidate wives, and their really big mouths?

I must say, this is my favorite Michelle Obama picture, the lower body solid and powerful the upper posture bespeaking “from the heart.” And all, of course, in a really cute outfit.

The picture is from a New York Times story by Katharine Seelye, about presidential candidate wives, “They Stand By Their Men, Loudly.” The story is a little bit weird in its construction, though I guess it wants to be about the changing presence of wives in the campaign.

Indeed, the story suddenly made me wonder if I should come up with a campaign equivalent of the “weight statement,” a term I’ve used to describe these sort of non-stories that are frequently trotted out by celebrithon media, in which a female actress declares that she “loves her curves,” or so on. It becomes a way for the media to talk about women’s bodies without saying anything directly, instead reporting what women are saying about themselves.

There’s a tinge of nonstory around this NYT report, so must ask, what is it really trying to say?

Well, the story takes up what I hinted at a month or two ago in “Michelle, my belle“– the question of what it means for wives, who in some past presidencies might have been understood as working “behind the scenes,” to emerge as public agents in their husband’s candidacies. Rather than be strategically deployed by campaigns, they go out and campaign. This is good, right?

But then the story picks up to the two most controversial statements made by Madames Obama and Edwards this season: Obama’s misquoted “family values” statement and Edwards’ oft-quoted (and genuinely precious) comment on the financial efficacy of being black or female in this election, versus a white man. We then come to this ambivalence:

With spouses less programmed than in the past, the line is blurrier between what women like Mrs. Edwards and Mrs. Obama want to say and what the campaigns need them to say.“These are two women lawyers who have been in the professional world where they’re expected to speak up,” Mr. Anthony said. “But they still serve as windows into their husbands’ character.”

That’s right: there’s a concern that Obama and Edwards, careerwomen, won’t know how to keep their big mouths shut. That is, after all, the problem with women who work; they too often “run their yappers.”

I think this easy play on stereotype is what’s been nagging me about the story’s title, and why I have written many words on what I’ve already claimed to be a nonstory (though in a way I guess the nonstory is more interesting than a story, because it tells us so much in its efforts to not say anything too much!). This is the stereotype of women in power as compulsive loudmouth’s– they have the power to speak, but, as women, nevertheless lack restraint. As “windows into their husbands’ character,” their independence is emasculating– he can’t keep her under control.

But this is, again, an ambivalence: by ending with Hillary Clinton, Seelye also (perhaps consciously but regardless fortunately) offers up the outcome of being a loudmouth as, well, running for president! I totally think there’s some political ambition evident in Michelle Obama’s campaigning. As I’ve noted elsewhere, remember Hillary’s “It takes a village”?

So yes, be annoyed by them and their big mouths, but also know that its exactly what they need.