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Spouses as Campaign Surrogates: Strategic Appearances byPresidential and Vice Presidential Candidates' Wives in the 2004Election

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2008

Susan A. MacManus  and
Andrew F. Quecan
Susan A. MacManus
Affiliation:
University of South Florida, Tampa Campus
Andrew F. Quecan
Affiliation:
University of South Florida, Tampa Campus
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Extract

It is clear from the presidential primary campaign that 2008 canlegitimately be labeled “the year of the spouse as surrogate.” Thesheer number of candidates on both sides of the aisle and theheavily front-loaded campaign season have made using the wives—andhusband—of the candidates a “must.” Never before has media attentionbeen so heavily focused on the spouses. In fact, they have oftenbeen an equal, or in some cases, bigger story than the candidatesthemselves. The same pattern will characterize the spouses of thevice presidential candidates. The bottom line is that use ofpresidential and vice presidential spouses hasbecome an integral part of presidential campaigns. In this article,we detail how the Bush and Kerry camps strategically scheduledspouses in the final days of the campaign—from Labor Day untilElection Day. We conclude with some thoughts about what to expect in2008.

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FEATURES
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PS: Political Science & Politics , Volume 41 , Issue 2 , April 2008 , pp. 337 - 348
Copyright
© 2008 The American Political Science Association

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