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Ever since a Washington Post series on her husband last winter depicted her as a power-mad spouse who once kicked to shreds a framed picture of her husband playing golf, Mrs. Quayle has been trying to soften her Cruella De Vil image. She is cooler in interviews and slower to anger. She proudly announces that she saves money by shopping monthly at the Price Club and that her kids come home and eat tuna "right out of the can." Normally careful to shield her children from public scrutiny, she now admits the abortion gaffe was unfortunate and "embarrassing" to her daughter Corinne. "We have reared our daughter so this would have to be a hypothetical situation," said Mrs. Quayle. But, she added, the girl "was not pleased."
But Corinne's mother has her independent streak as well. She takes issue, for example, with the President's wish that philandering charges have no part in a political campaign. "That's all part of the character issues," she insisted. "And anyone who is going to be President -- you do look at the character of the person. That's what makes a person whole." Such remarks led a party official to quip, "She's our answer to Hillary."
The our-wife-can-top-your-wife game can be carried too far. No sooner had Bush been accused of infidelity than G.O.P. chairman Rich Bond attacked Mrs. Clinton for likening marriage to slavery -- a gross distortion of an educational review article she wrote in 1973. But Mrs. Bush, as if she were waging a one-woman campaign to court the political middle, publicly chastised Bond for his remarks. "I didn't like it," she said. "She's not running for office." Mrs. Bush added, "I know a lot of wonderful men married to pills, and I know a lot of pills married to wonderful women. So one shouldn't judge that way."
But it is bound to happen. In an era of sound bites and short attention spans, when complex issues like deficit reduction and health care often seem too difficult to understand, many voters will simply choose the candidate who best fits their "values." And one way to judge a man's values is to look at the woman he married.