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Tuesday, Feb 9, 2010
Those first-lady watchers searching for even more interesting reverbs after the blasts from the HRC THX can also check out Tipper's one Democratic rival for the office, Ernestine Schlant Bradley.
Despite her insistence that she'll stay mum on issues of substance outside of breast-cancer awareness, for instance, Dr. Ernestine Schlant -- Mrs. Bill Bradley's professional name -- is every bit as intellectual as her Rhodes Scholar husband. Though her lively personality is a more than a tad warmer than that of her frostily elusive hubbie.
Born in Passua, Germany, the former Pan Am flight attendant graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Emory University, where she also went on to earn her master's and doctorate degrees in comparative literature. A professor of German and comp lit at New Jersey's Montclair State University, Bradley has co-authored several university textbooks, co-edited "Legacies and Ambiguities: Postwar Fiction and Culture in West Germany and Japan," and translated Kate Millet's "Sexual Politics" into German.
She's also penned three books -- two examining the work of Austrian philosopher/novelist Hermann Broch, and "The Language of Silence: West German Literature and the Holocaust," which was published in March. Hardly the stuff of the little woman who watches soaps all day in between bake-offs.
Thus, it's tough to imagine that Ernestine Bradley doesn't have opinions on policy issues. But the message from the Bradley campaign is entirely different. There's her insistence that she won't "pretend that I'm a political expert on issues," delivered at that June breakfast, incongruously packed with Manhattan professional women and hosted by Anna Quindlen, no less. Bradley spokesman Eric Hauser is loathe to describe Ernestine Bradley's role on the campaign in anything other than the vaguest terms.
"Bill thinks of her as a partner in every sense of the word, and she is a sounding board for him on a lot of things," Hauser says, "but that is something they keep pretty private, which is appropriate." Having taken a leave of absence from Montclair State University in May, she's now "an active part of the campaign," making solo runs to Iowa and California. But "the extent to which Bill Bradley talks to his wife about policy is something that they keep to themselves."
When I ask if breast-cancer awareness (she is a breast-cancer survivor) is the only issue she would be active in promoting from the mini-bully pulpit of the first lady's cozy-laden office, Hauser again shakes me off, relating that "she has said that it's way too early to think about what her agenda might be."
Odd talk from a campaign that heralds Dr. Schlant as its "secret weapon" on the stump. But then, as Hillary Clinton has found out, weapons can backfire. And in a nation still coming to terms with how it likes its women, a strong, intellectual, independent woman doesn't always sell.
Cindy Hensley McCain may be the first-lady-in-waiting with the most baggage, though for vastly different reasons than Hillary Clinton.
Cindy Hensley grew up in Arizona society with beauty and wealth and central air conditioning. Born to Jim and Marguerite Hensley, who own one of the largest Anheuser-Busch distributors in the nation, she went to the University of Southern California, where she got her master's in Special Education. In 1980, she married a divorced war hero almost 20 years her senior, John McCain, the U.S. Navy liaison officer to the U.S. Senate. Then-Sen. Bill Cohen, R-Maine, was his best man; then-Sen. Gary Hart, D-Colo., was a groomsman.
Two years later, McCain was elected to the House; four years after that, he joined Cohen and Hart in the Senate.
In 1988, Cindy McCain founded the Arizona Voluntary Medical Team, or AVMT, a non-profit organization that organized trips for doctors and nurses to third-world countries where disaster had struck -- Micronesia, Nicaragua, Bangladesh, El Salvador.
While at Mother Teresa's orphanage in Bangladesh, Cindy adopted a child and helped coordinate the adoption of another little girl for Wes Gullett, a family friend. "She's just that kind of person," Gullett says. "She saw these kids in need and said, 'They can have a better life in America. How can I help them?' She's done that throughout her life."
In August 1993, she and the AVMT were honored with an award from Food for the Hungry. "She looks beyond politics and military action in an effort to provide the world's children access to their basic right of medical care," said the group's president.
But it was already becoming clear that Cindy McCain's life was not all altruism and awards. The previous year, volunteer doctors began complaining that Cindy McCain had been using their DEA numbers. The Drug Enforcement Agency itself had been calling and asking about rather sizable orders of Percocet, an addictive painkiller. Hundreds of Percocets were missing from AMVT's inventory.
In August 1994, a long, grim and protracted scandal blew open. What eventually came out is that Cindy McCain had been addicted to painkillers such as Percocet ever since she had back surgeries in 1989, sometimes popping as many as 20 in a day. And she had been stealing them from the nonprofit organization she had founded. The lawyer that her husband had used during the Keating Five scandal was put on the case; she eventually signed off on an agreement with the U.S. Attorney's office that included financial restitution and treatment for her addiction.
There were accusations of blackmail, and a coverup. When Cindy McCain publicly revealed her addiction -- saying that she hoped it would give other addicts courage in their struggles -- some of her detractors thought it was nothing more than a political preemptive strike.
"Although my conduct did not result in compromising any missions of AMVT, my actions were wrong, and I regret them," she said in a statement. A few weeks later, the Variety Club of Arizona had to cancel its Humanitarian of the Year Award dinner in her honor because of poor ticket sales.
Since then, McCain has kept a comfortable distance from the media. She continues her charity work, traveling around the world (the Balkans in May), and founding another nonprofit in 1995 -- the Hensley Family Foundation, which donates money for children's programs in Arizona and the rest of the country.
"She's involved in great humanitarian efforts, on top of being a very busy mother, which she sees as her main priority," says Sen. McCain's campaign spokesman, Howard Opinsky. "She sees herself as very traditional first lady, and she's very proud of that fact."
Understandably, Cindy McCain is wary of reporters. One reporter tells the story of a press event at the McCains' Arizona house where she'd roped the media off, much to her husband's chagrin. "That's just the way she operates," says Gullett, now a fulltime staffer on the McCain 2000 campaign, who says that Cindy has always kept a low profile. "She's not shy or anything; she's just a private person. Part of that is that she grew up and lived in Phoenix all her life, and we're kind of private people ... we like to keep to ourselves."
Opinsky insists that Cindy McCain's low profile is in no way attributable to her relatively recent scandal. "She talks about the situation and how she was able to overcome it," he says. "She's very proud of her ability to overcome it and get clean." He says that her role as first lady would probably include talking about addiction, in addition to more comfortable subjects like children and humanitarian aid. "She really hasn't given that much thought so far," says Opinsky. "But those are issues she's involved with today and she has said she wants to continue with those things."
Aside from her good works and bad habit, members of the Arizona media don't seem to know much about her. She even stays out of the society pages. A spokesman for the McCain 2000 campaign couldn't even tell me whether or not the candidate's wife had ever appeared with him on the stump. Staffers acknowledge their slight discomfort whenever anyone asks about her; she prefers to stay hidden.
That anonymity going to be tough to maintain if her husband's campaign catches on -- which is the point, right? Aside from a "family" journal she occasionally pens for her husband's Web site, Cindy McCain seems to be taking the concept of a stay-at-home mom to an extreme.
"It'll change somewhat," Gullett says.
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