Presidential politics and bad relationships

Hillary got it handed to her in the Iowa caucuses Thursday night and the political prognosticators and pontificators are busy trying to figure out why. She has been the acknowledged front runner since she declared her candidacy and has enjoyed double-digit leads over her competitors since then. That is until Thursday night. Barack Obama beat her by nine percentage points and the pundits said his victory would have been much larger in an actual vote rather than the caucus process followed in Iowa. Hillary, in fact, finished third, one percentage point behind John Edwards, who also finished second in the Iowa caucuses four years ago and was John Kerry's running-mate.

All sorts of reasons have been launched for Hillary's third place finish. Some mention her unusually high disapproval ratings. Forty percent of registered voters nationally say they wouldn't vote for her regardless of what she said or did. Others believe her to be lacking warmth and the ability to "connect" with voters. Still others believe her husband, Bill, hurts her more than helps her. All of these are viable reasons for her third place finish but I believe there's another reason too and that is her husband's infidelity before and during his presidency and how she handled it.

Many of us remember their nationally televised appearance on one of the morning talk shows where she quoted Tammy Wynette's song "Stand By Your Man" as the reason why she didn't divorce Bill when she found out about his dalliances. That sounds like an admirable thing to do but I've always believed that her motives for staying were more sinister than admirable.

I think she stayed because it was in her political best interest to stay. She has always been a political animal, just like her husband. In fact, they met while campaigning for George McGovern in 1972. It has been reported that when Bill first took her home to meet his mother, his mom called him into the kitchen and asked him why he would go out with someone so, well, unattractive. He told his mom that Hillary was the only woman he had ever dated that he considered to be his intellectual equal and that she would be a tremendous asset as he began his political career. When they married, she intended to keep her maiden name, Hillary Rodham, because it was the politically correct thing to do among feminists of the 70's, but the people of Arkansas reacted negatively towards that decision, so she added Clinton's name to her maiden name with a hyphen. Again because it was in their political best interest to do so.

So they've always been a political couple; driven more by the lust for power and influence than by love for the people they have been elected to serve or love for each other and I think that's why she remained in the marriage instead of divorcing him. Not because of some all-consuming love for him but an all-consuming drive not to do anything that might damage them politically.

I think most of the people know that as well. In our own lives we all know people who have made similar decisions. When our spouse cheats on us, it's a complete and total betrayal of trust and, as I've written in this column many times, trust is the cornerstone and foundation of any relationship. Consequently, when the trust is violated, most people realize and understand, even though it may be painful and heartbreaking, that the marriage has been made untenable and they get a divorce. But some don't. Because of their status in the community, or because it might impact negatively on their business or livelihood, or because of their insecurity and the belief they might not be able to find anyone else, they stay. They look the other way, or they stick their head in the sand, or they tolerate it, or they simply pretend it isn't happening.

We tend not to have much respect for people who make those kinds of decisions. They have been wronged, lied to, cheated on, and made to look foolish and yet they stay, not because they're madly in love with their spouse to the point that they would put up with anything but rather because, in some way, it's more expedient for them to stay than leave.

I think that's the way people reacted to Hillary's decision to stay with Bill. She certainly didn't come off in the television appearance mentioned earlier as being madly in love with her husband and being willing to forgive him and give him another chance. She came off instead as being cold and calculating, staying with him not out of love and forgiveness but, once again, for political expediency.

And I believe that decision will continue to follow her as she tries to right her ship and continue her quest for the Democratic nomination for President. The conundrum she faces is that by doing what she thought was the most politically expedient thing to do by staying in her marriage, she, in fact, did just the opposite.