First Ladies (85 page)

91
.
New York Times
, January 19, 2001.

92
.
New York Times
, January 9, 2001.

93
.
International Herald Tribune
, December 19, 2000.

94
. For details of the book festival, see Elaine Sciolino, “First Lady Opens a Festival To Promote National Literacy,”
New York Times
, September 7, 2001.

95
. Less than a year later, the Foundation had raised $5 million. See
AP Online
, June 4, 2002.

96
. Other headlines pointed to a changed role for the First Lady. See Faye Fiore, “A First Lady's Metamorphosis,”
Los Angeles Times
, October 10, 2001; Nina Burleigh, “A New Life for Laura Bush,”
US Weekly
, October 15, 2001.

97
.
New York Times
, October 7, 2002.

98
.
New York Times
, October 7, 2002.

99
. For one example of coverage of this event, see Bob Kemper, “In Solo Radio Address, Laura Bush Opens Worldwide Effort to Spotlight Taliban's Policies Against Women,”
Chicago Tribune
, November 17, 2001.

100
. For the transcription of Laura Bush's radio address, see
www.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=24992
.

101
. For the content of Laura Bush's United Nations speech on March 8, 2002, see
http://huwu.org/events/women/2002/bush.htm
.

102
. Tasha Dubriwny, “First Ladies and Feminism: Laura Bush as Advocate for Women's and Children's Rights,”
Women's Studies in Communication
(2005), p. 95.

103
. Sheryl Gay Stolbert, “First Lady Raising Her Profile without Changing Her Image,”
New York Times
, October 15, 2007, p. A9.

104
. Karlyn Kohrs Campbell, “The Rhetorical Presidency: A Two-Person Career,” in Martin J. Medhurst, ed.,
Beyond the Rhetorical Presidency
(College Station, 1996), p. 180.

105
. Dubriwny, “First Ladies and Feminism,” p. 84.

106
. Myra Greenberg Gutin first put forth this categorization in her doctoral dissertation, “The President's Partner: The First Lady as Public Communicator, 1920–1976” (Unpublished Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Michigan, 1983). Her book
The President's Partner: The First Lady in the Twentieth Century
(Westport, 1989) drew on this dissertation. Later she published “Using All Available Means of Persuasion: The Twentieth-Century First Lady as Public Communicator,”
Social Science Journal
(2000), pp. 563–75.

107
. Hillary Clinton, United Nations International Women's Day Speech on Women's Rights, March 4, 1999,
http://clinton2.nara.gov/WH/EOP/First_Lady/html/
generalspeeches,/19990304.html
.

108
. “Mrs. Laura Bush's Leadership: First Lady's Work Advances President Bush's Agenda at Home and Abroad,” fact sheet from Laura Bush's office.

109
. Carlotta Gall, “Laura Bush Carries Pet Causes to Afghans,”
New York Times
, March 31, 2005, p. A10.

110
. “Mrs. Laura Bush's Leadership” fact sheet.

111
. Stolbert, “First Lady Raising Her Profile,” p. 1.

112
. “Mrs. Laura Bush's Leadership” fact sheet.

113
. Emily Eakin, “Mrs. Bush, It's Not about Fashion,”
New York Times
, January 20, 2001, p. B9.

114
. Kelly Wallace, “First Lady Shakes Up White House Staff,”
www.cnn.com/2005/ALLPOLITICS/02/16/
first.lady/index.html
. Also see Elisabeth Bumiller, “All Quiet in the West Wing, but More Change in the East,”
New York Times
, March 27, 2006,
www.nytimes.com/2006/03/27/politics/27letter.html
?.

115
. Bumiller, “All Quiet in the West Wing.”

116
. Katha Pollitt, “Poetry Makes Nothing Happen? Ask Laura Bush,”
The Nation,
February 6, 2003,
www.thenation.com/doc/20030224/pollitt
.

117
.
www.cnn.com/2005/Politics/06/27/bush.poll/index.html
.

118
.
www.cnn.com/2008/Politics/05/01/bush.poll/
.

119
. Elisabeth Bumiller, “A First Lady Fiercely Loyal and Quietly Effective,”
New York Times
, February 7, 2004, p. A9.

120
.
www.gallup.com/poll/21370/Laura-Bush-Approval-Ratings-Among-Best-First-Ladies.aspx?version=print
.

121
. “Talk of the Town,”
New Yorker
, June 6, 2005, p. 31.

122
. Curtis Sittenfeld,
American Wife: A Novel
(New York, 2008).

123
. Curtis Sittenfeld, “The Compassionate Conservative,”
New York Times
, November 2, 2008, Sunday Opinion, p. 11.

124
. The author is indebted to Prof. Douglas Lonnstrom for sharing early results of this survey. For more details, see
Appendix VI
and
www.siena.edu/sri/surveys.asp
.

125
. Sandra Sobieraj Westfall, “I Didn't Realize the Impact the First Lady Can Have,”
People
, January 19, 2009, p. 66.

1
. Eleanor Clift and Tom Brazaitis,
Madam President: Shattering the Last Glass Ceiling
(New York, 2000), p. 17.

2
. For information on all women who served in Congress from 1917 to 2001, see
www.gpoaccess.gov/serial set/cdocuments'hd108–223/hd108–223.pdf
. For specifics on the 111th Congress, see Center for American Women and Politics, Eagleton Institute of Politics, Rutgers University, “Women in the U.S. Congress, 2009.”

3
. Only eleven of the then forty-eight states permitted women to vote on the same basis as men, but other states permitted them to vote in some elections. See Alexander Keyssar,
The Right to Vote
(New York, 2000), Tables A19 and A20.

4
. See
page 63
.

5
. Mychal Massie, “Michelle Obama: Angry Black Harridan,” WorldNet Daily Exclusive, February 26, 2008,
www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?pageId=57312
.

6
. Robert P. Watson and Ann Gordon, eds.,
Anticipating Madam President
(Boulder, 2003), p. 146. Gallup polls taken over four decades had not been consistent. In 1957 and 1968, Americans indicated they were more likely to vote for a woman than for an African-American man. In the 1978 poll, the African American had a slight advantage, which was wiped out in 1987 but reappeared in 1997.

7
. A Gallup poll in February 2007 found that 88 percent of Americans said they would vote for a well-qualified woman. In 1969, that figure had been 53 percent. See
www.pewreswearch.org/pubs/474/female-president
. For a discussion of earlier polls on the viability of a woman's candidacy for president, see Clift and Brazaitis,
Madam President
, pp. 15–31.

8
. Jill Norgren,
Belva Lockwood: The Woman Who Would Be President
(New York, 2007).

9
. Belva Lockwood, “How I Ran for the Presidency,”
National Magazine
(March 1903), pp. 728–33.

10
. Center for American Women and Politics, Eagleton Institute of Politics, Rutgers University, “Presidential Watch,”
www.cawp.rutgers.edu
.

11
. Shirley Chisholm,
The Good Fight
(New York, 1973), pp. 161–62.

12
. In 1972, Patsy Mink, a congresswoman from Hawaii, collected 2 percent of the vote in Oregon when she ran as an antiwar Democrat. On Ellen McCormack, see Center for American Women and Politics, Eagleton Institute, Rutgers University, “Presidential Watch,”
www.cawp.rutgers.edu
.

13
. Clift and Brazaitis,
Madam President
, p. 18.

14
. Pat Schroeder,
24 Years of House Work … and the Place Is Still a Mess
(Kansas City, 1998), p. 41.

15
. Schroeder,
24 Years of House Work
, p. 179.

16
. Schroeder,
24 Years of House Work
, p. 186.

17
. Robert P. Watson, “Elizabeth Dole,” in Watson and Gordon, eds.,
Anticipating Madam President
, p. 201.

18
. Richard Wolffe,
Renegade: The Making of a President
(New York, 2009), pp. 3–4.

19
. Karlyn Kohrs Campbell, “The Discursive Performance of Femininity: Hating Hillary,”
Rhetoric & Public Affairs
(1998), pp. 1–2.

20
. Campbell, “Discursive Performance,” p. 4.

21
. John Heilemann, “The Fall and Rise of Hillary Clinton,”
New York
, June 23, 2008, p. 89.

22
. Wolffe,
Renegade
, p. 245.

23
. Bradley H. Patterson,
The White House Staff: Inside the West Wing and Beyond
(Washington, D.C., 2000), p. 281.

24
. Patterson,
White House Staff
, p. 289.

25
. See page
310
.

26
. Karen O'Connor, Bernadette Nye, and Laura Van Assendelft, “Wives in the White House: The Political Influence of First Ladies,”
Presidential Studies Quarterly
(1996), p. 835.

27
. O'Connor, Nye, and Van Assendelft, “Wives in the White House,” p. 835.

28
. Clift and Brazaitis,
Madam President
, pp. 46–47.

29
. Gil Troy,
Mr. and Mrs. President: Trumans to Clintons
(Lawrence, 2001), p. 223. A slightly different version of this book,
Affairs of State: The Rise and Rejection of the
Presidential Couple Since World War II
, was published in 1997. Troy explained that the first title no longer seemed appropriate after the Clinton/Lewinsky revelations.

30
. Troy,
Mr. and Mrs. President
, pp. 225–26.

31
. For the view that Eleanor's influence has been exaggerated, see Troy,
Mr. and Mrs. President
, p. 9.

32
. See
Appendix
.

33
. Wolffe,
Renegade
, p. 313.

34
. William Kristol, “Let Palin Be Palin,”
The Weekly Standard
, September 8, 2008,
www.theweeklystandard.com/Content/Pulic
/Articles/000/000/015/500wrhjq.asp
.

35
. Ariel Levy, “The Lonesome Trail: Cindy McCain's Nontraditional Campaign,”
New Yorker
, September 15, 2008, p. 56.

36
. Catherine Allgore,
Parlor Politics
(Charlottesville, 2000).

37
. Susan Milligan, “Activists Expect Clinton to Propel Women's Rights,”
Boston Globe,
December 1, 2008,
www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2008/12/01/
activists_expect_clinton _to_propel_women's_rights/
.

38
. The previous day, January 16, President Johnson had accused two senators of working in tandem to stall any action at all on civil rights. See Michael Beschloss, ed.,
Taking Charge: The Johnson White House Tapes, 1963–1964
(New York, 1997), p. 164.

39
. Biographical information on Michelle Robinson Obama comes from a variety of sources, including Liza Mundy,
Michelle: A Biography
(New York, 2008).

40
. Michelle LaVaughn Robinson, “Princeton-Educated Blacks and the Black Community,”
http://obamaprincetonthesis.wordpress.com
.

41
. Mundy
, Michelle: A Biography
, p. 65.

42
. Robinson, “Princeton-Educated Blacks and the Black Community,” p. 2.

43
. Robinson, “Princeton-Educated Blacks and the Black Community,” p. 2.

44
. Wolffe,
Renegade
, pp. 35–36.

45
. Wolffe,
Renegade
, p. 52.

46
. Wolffe,
Renegade
, p. 60.

47
. Rebecca Johnson, “The Natural,”
Vanity Fair
, September 2007, p. 781.

48
. Wolffe,
Renegade
, p. 52.

49
. Johnson “Natural,” p. 777.

50
. Johnson, “Natural,” p. 781.

51
.
New York Times
, November 6, 2008, p. P6.

52
.
National Review
, April 2008.

53
. Jeff Zeleny, “Book Sales Lifted Obamas' Income in 2007 to a Total of $4.2 Million,”
New York Times
, April 17, 2008,
www.nytimes.com/2008/04/17/us/politics/17obama.html
.

54
. Gardiner Harris, “The Underside of the Welcome Mat,”
New York Times
, November 11, 2009,
www.nytimes.com/2008/11/09/weekinreview/09harris.html
. Also see William Seale,
The President's House
(Washington, D.C., 2 vols., 1986), vol. 1, 68.

55
. Nathan Miller,
Theodore Roosevelt: A Life
(New York, 1992), 362.

56
. See
page 186
for an earlier account of this incident. For additional details that came to light when Lou Hoover's papers were opened at the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library, see David S. Day, “A New Perspective on the ‘DePriest Tea' Historiographic Controversy,”
Journal of Negro History
(1990), pp. 120–24.

57
. Nancy Beck Young,
Lou Henry Hoover: Activist First Lady
(Lawrence, 2004), 69.

58
. “Blacks Who Slept at the White House,”
Ebony
, September 1988, p. 66.