(6 of 8)
Left very much on her own, a wife learns to cope with problems that a more conventional husband might take off her hands. Knowing that she will be seeing even less of her husband than before, Helen Jackson, wife of Democratic Presidential Hopeful Henry ("Scoop") Jack son, has enrolled in a course in home maintenance so that she will be able to repair plumbing and electrical appliances. Last year two Senate wives — Barbara Eagleton and Ann Stevens — took an auto-repair course.
Long or frequent absences by a politician father can be hardest on children. Susan Ford, 17, wandering about the White House family quarters in T shirt and carpenter's pants, recalled that "not having a daddy at home made it really hard on Mother. She had to put up with three boys — and me." But she added, "Dad really just wasn't home a lot, so when he was there, it was so special we did everything we could to make him happy — and he did everything he could to make us happy." When John Lindsay was a Congressman he left his family at home, as do many others. His wife Mary recalls that "when our daughter Margie was six, John walked in with a couple of friends and she said in a loud voice, 'How come everybody else gets to see Daddy and we don't?' That did it. We moved to Washington, and I think it saved the children."
Unlikely Casanovas. There is also the danger of an absent husband's taking permanent leave. Other women are an ever-present threat. Political office, or campaigning for it, can convert the most unlikely prospect into a Casanova. For the first time in his life, he discovers that he is irresistible to certain women with a craving for power. The temptation is hard to resist, and many scarcely try. "It's a very heady business," says Jane Muskie. "You go to a party alone, and when your husband arrives you see all those women advance on him like vultures. Well, that does something to a man that's not normal."
Barbara Howar, a shrewd observer and participant in the Washington sex-and-politics scene, refers to all the secretaries and stewardesses available to the vulnerable politician as so much "cannon fodder." Says Howar, who has been linked more than once with familiar Washington names: "The kind of man who will stand up and say, 'Vote for me because I am better than he' has just the kind of ego that needs that physical contact, that someone saying, 'I want you.'" The protective devices against these dangerous liaisons have broken down, she feels. "Washington never has had any standards. This town has no morality at all. It was always the stern standards of their home communities that people brought with them to Washington." Now, she maintains, morals are almost as relaxed in the provinces as in the nation's capital, and wives suffer for it while their husbands make the most of it.