Though voters may profess to evaluate candidates on their policies, Scarborough's racy comment revealed an attitude that, for better or worse, is always simmering.
"Sexuality has this unconscious power," said Pepper Schwartz, a University of Washington sociologist who believes that the looks and interactions of political couples send powerful messages. "It goes past the rational brain and goes into the emotional circuit. It's one of those visceral things where voters say one thing and think another."
Schwartz said that although older women might be put off by the May-December aspect of some of these marriages, younger men might be impressed. "The men say, 'What a guy!' and women say, 'What an ego!' "
For the record, Thompson is 24 years older than Jeri. She is a political professional who has worked for the Republican National Committee and as a media consultant for a Washington law firm.
McCain is 18 years older than Cindy, Giuliani 11 years older than Judith. Sen. Christopher J. Dodd of Connecticut, a Democratic hopeful, is 18 years older than his wife, Jackie. The prize for greatest age gap, however, goes to Democratic contender Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich of Ohio, who is 31 years older than his 29-year-old wife, Elizabeth.
As often is the case in a campaign, let alone a marriage, it is hard to tell when spontaneity ends and calculation begins. Public displays of affection are no exception.
Robert Watson, director of American studies at Lynn University in Florida, recalled that when President George H.W. Bush had sagging poll numbers during his 1992 reelection campaign, his advisors begged him to show some affection to his popular wife, Barbara, on the trail.
"He just wouldn't do it," Watson said. "He had that cold Yankee demeanor."
(And we all know how the election turned out: America went with the guy who held hands with his wife on national TV as he admitted he'd "caused pain" in his marriage.)
In 1998, when President Clinton's affair with Monica S. Lewinsky was about to drive the nation into a paroxysm of partisanship and eventually, impeachment, the Clintons were photographed, paparazzi-style, on a beach in the Virgin Islands, in bathing suits, waltzing together on the sand.
It was an apparently tender marital moment, and because he was preparing to be deposed in Paula Jones' sexual harassment lawsuit, many believed it was not spontaneous.
