Everyone in the political world has weighed in on revelations regarding John Edwards’ extra-marital affair. Edwards has talked about it, his wife has written about it, and his former aides have criticized him for it. Hillary Clinton has commented; Barack Obama has commented. Every pundit within reach of a microphone, telephone, or keyboard has said at least something.
But when asked at a press conference yesterday for a reaction, John McCain would only say, “I don’t have any comment on it.”
I continue to think there’s a good reason McCain should be worried about this story: if adultery and presidential candidates becomes a topic of discussion, he has a lot to lose.
Some media personalities haven’t quite figured this out yet.
On the August 8 edition of MSNBC’s Race for the White House, host David Gregory baselessly suggested that former Sen. John Edwards’ (D-NC) disclosure of an extramarital affair has some relevance to Sen. Barack Obama’s presidential campaign. Gregory opened the show by saying, “Tonight, more on Edwards and the fallout from his admission today about a sexual affair: Is this another skeleton in the Democratic closet that Barack Obama must struggle to overcome?”
This was a pretty dumb thing to say, topped by Michelle Malkin using the revelation to attack Bill Clinton for the infidelity in his past.
In some ways, I couldn’t be more pleased. If Republicans really want to go down this road, Dems would be wise to follow their lead. Indeed, John Edwards himself quickly recognized the political salience of this angle.
I don’t know if this made the broadcast or not, but when Edwards sat down with ABC News’ Bob Woodruff, he pointed in McCain’s direction.
[Edwards], in explaining his view that his dalliance could remain private, cited Republican John McCain’s reported affair at the end of his first marriage almost three decades ago.
“What I was thinking was this was something that was personal to my own family,” Edwards said, citing other public figures having survived extramarital affairs. He recalled, he said, having heard “John McCain talk about the mistakes that he’s made in his past with respect to his first marriage…. I’m not the first person to do this.”
My friend Adam Serwer summarized the broader dynamic very well: “Personally, I don’t care what politicians’ marriages are like, but I really think that it’s a mistake for conservatives to make marriage fidelity an issue when their standard-bearer has his own share of problems in that arena.”
Indeed, for all of the media frenzy associated with yesterday’s revelations, this is really a tale of two affairs, one that news outlets want to hype, and one that news outlets want to ignore. One involves a senator who left public office four years ago, and who is not currently seeking any public office. The other involves a sitting senator who is about to become the Republican nominee for president. Both have admitted extra-marital affairs, and both have been dishonest about the circumstances surrounding their messy private lives.
And yet, one is a huge story, and one is a subject that is largely verboten in our public discourse.
Slate’s Christopher Beam was one of the few to pick up on the angle the McCain campaign desperately hopes reporters ignore.
Recall: John McCain returned to the United States from Vietnam in March 1973. His wife, Carol, had been in a near-fatal car accident while he was gone. She was overweight, on crutches, and 4 inches shorter than when McCain had left. McCain ended up divorcing Carol for Cindy Hensley, his current wife. Carol has remained mostly silent on her marriage to John, except for one notable comment to a McCain biographer: “John was turning 40 and wanting to be 25 again.”
There were legal complications, too. The Los Angeles Times reported in June that McCain obtained a marriage license while still legally married to his first wife. McCain suggested in his autobiography that he divorced Carol months before marrying Cindy. In fact, that period was about five weeks. He also said that for the first nine months of his relationship with Cindy, he still “cohabited” with Carol. Social conservatives were never McCain’s base, but yes, it could get worse.
For the most part, the media have politely skirted around this episode of McCain’s life. (Not to mention other unflattering moments.) For one thing, it’s long past. McCain has since developed a reputation for credibility and transparency. (Post-Keating Five, that is.) And, unlike Edwards, he told the truth about his deviance. “My marriage’s collapse was attributable to my own selfishness and immaturity,” McCain wrote in his autobiography. “The blame was entirely mine.”
But with Edwards’ infidelity front and center, that could change. In recent weeks, McCain’s ads have taken a turn for the personal, comparing Obama to vapid celebrities like Paris and Britney. Now Obama is coming under increasing pressure to retaliate. The Obama camp has never publicly raised McCain’s marital issues, nor would it. But insinuation, coupled with euphemisms about “trust” and “commitment,” can go a long way. In an environment filled with personal attacks on both sides, you can bet McCain’s past will become fair game. The Edwards news even gives McCain’s detractors a convenient pretext to raise the subject. So you heard about Edwards ditching his sick wife? Wait till you get a load of McCain…
McCain wants to make the presidential race personal? That’s not what most Democrats had in mind, but if he insists….