THE BILL FACTOR. People who object to Hillary Clinton's potential presidential candidacy often do so on the grounds that it will revive media focus on Bill Clinton in a way that will damage her and Democrats generally, not to mention drag America back into a deeply annoying and contentious moment in our past. Some different woman candidate, one not married to a former president -- and, specifically, not married to him -- might have a less controversial time of it, according to this line of thinking, because her husband would be less of an issue. To them I would suggest: Take a look at what happened to Geraldine Ferraro. I was reminded of what a major issue her husband became in her 1984 campaign this morning while reading a journalism history book, and it's a history worth considering.
Even today, husbands frequently become issues in women's campaigns in ways they don't in those of male candidates (see: Pirro, Jeannine), because political husbands are more likely than political wives to have had independent careers and finances that can be investigated. Sure, times have changed since Ferraro ran in the veep's slot, but it seems pretty clear that the husband of any woman who runs for president will become an issue one way or another, and certainly will be the subject of indpendent and close scrutiny. The one advantage Bill Clinton would have in such a situation is that he has already been so thoroughly investigated, and subjected such great scrutiny, that the bar for opinion-changing news about him is pretty darn high. Plus, if any political husband in America knows how to ride out negative media attention, it's him. (Worth noting also is that Ferraro, in 1992, unsuccessfully tried to become the first female senator from New York -- a mantle ultimately claimed by Hillary Clinton just eight years later.)
--Garance Franke-Ruta
