BRIDGEPORT, Conn. — They are two nice ladies from the Southwest, daughters of wealth and privilege, mothers who are panther-like in their protection of hearth and home.
Both left teaching careers to concentrate full time on raising children. Both are grateful that the circumstances of their marriages to successful men permitted them to do so.
Both are avid volunteers. Both are handsome women, with pastel eyes that might have wandered out of a Monet painting. Both favor expensive wardrobes, especially these days if the garments fare well in a suitcase.
So striking are the superficial similarities between Laura Welch Bush and Cindy Hensley McCain that in another life, the two might have been friends. But the growing antagonism between their husbands, Texas Gov. George W. Bush and Sen. John McCain of Arizona--the two front-runners for the Republican presidential nomination--makes that unlikely.
Instead, as the GOP presidential campaign spirals toward conclusion, the wives have surfaced as stealth campaign weapons. While the husbands duke it out, the two women with the country-club manners are there to smooth out the edges. Barely visible in the early days of the race, the wives are suddenly everywhere. For both, it is a part that is being written as they go along.
Spouses Play Pivotal Roles
Pros at their craft, Bush and McCain have perfected The Look, the wide-eyed gaze of adoration required of any First Lady. They know their job now is to market the next president as a man who is not only a whiz at foreign policy, but also an ideal husband.
Sitting in a hotel room last week in Virginia Beach, Va., Cindy McCain, 45, said, "People are very interested in seeing the two of us together. They want to see how we interact. There's also a great deal of interest in me, seeing how I act and look, all those things."
A few days later, in what was ambitiously described as the presidential suite of a chain hotel here, 52-year-old Laura Bush offered much the same assessment.
"People are interested in the personal lives of the candidates. People are interested in the family life of the people who are running for office," she said. "I think that's appropriate."
