Here We Go Again: the Political Prop Wife

I was hoping that maybe this scandal would be different.  When Anthony Wiener was caught in a series of mutually stupid sexting scandals,  wife Huma  Abedin stayed away from the role of adoring political prop wife.  She let him handle the reporters and the public on his own.  I admire Mark Sanford’s wife who has completely turned the stereotype of political prop wife on its head.   After these kinds of public humiliations, the least you should be able to hang on to is your dignity and self respect.  That’s far more important than staying in a marriage with a Lothario.

The worst and most shameful abuse of a wife of a politician had to be by David Vitter who got caught with his diapers down on a prostitute’s call list.

Looks like one more manipulative political husband just can’t resist trotting out his probably long suffering wife just one more time.  Herman Cain may be getting some big donations from men in denial of their treatment of women, but his numbers with women voters–who know that men frequently overstep their boundaries–have dropped like an avalanche.  So, he’s going to do the knee jerk damage control thing and  trot out political man’s best friend, his prop wife.  After enduring the Vitter presser, I’ve decided this is nothing less than domestic abuse.  I still remember Eliot Spitzer’s wife blaming herself for his problem with call girls.  What campaign manager thinks the public humiliation of a wife is good politics?

Introducing … Gloria Etchison Cain.

At long last, the political spouse who has kept the lowest profile of the campaign season is preparing to make a network debut. Mrs. Cain, who has been married to the former restaurant executive Herman Cain for 43 years, is expected to sit down this weekend with Greta Van Susteren of Fox News, for a segment that could air on Monday, according to a source familiar with the planning.

Mrs. Cain has, to date, not appeared on the campaign trail with her husband, and is said to prefer her home life in Atlanta, far away from the national spotlight. But since allegations of sexual harassment began to engulf the Cain campaign almost two weeks ago, it had been rumored that Mrs. Cain would eventually come to her husband’s defense on television.

Mr. Cain has been talking about his wife and family more of late, perhaps to offer a counterpoint to the multiple women who have come forward to accuse him of inappropriate behavior while he was chief of the National Restaurant Association in the 1990s.

While in New York City on Friday for a major fund-raising drive, Mr. Cain stopped at Fox News and was asked about his wife by the host Neil Cavuto. “What’s she saying to you?” he questioned.

Mr. Cain replied, “She’s saying to me that the family has your back. We’re not going to let them, you know, continue to … We are there.”

Worst example to date of making your humiliated wife act as your prop for the purposes of shoring up your hypocritical ass comes from selfish David Vitter.

Gotta admire the former Mrs. Stanford for leaving her bum of a husband and getting on with her life.  She seems to be one of the few wronged political wives that didn’t accept her role as prop and pulled herself away from a man that obviously didn’t have her or her family’s best interests at heart.  I can only imagine what  Gloria Cain will be put through to prop up her husband’s stalled ambitions.