Presidential Race 2008

Sat Mar 31, 3:04 PM

By Beth Gorham

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WASHINGTON (CP) - In this U.S. presidential race, the personal has perhaps never been quite so political.

In the early going for the 2008 campaign, American voters are already checking out a woman who stuck by her husband through all-too-public infidelity, an African American, a Mormon and a former senator whose wife is battling cancer.

There’s a remarried senator in his 70s and a former New York mayor who’s estranged from his kids and wed to wife No. 3.

That’s not even counting some potential entrants to the race, including another thrice-wed Republican who’s admitted he cheated on wife No. 2.

It’s unusual to have such an open contest in both parties, where neither has someone running for re-election or an heir apparent in the vice-president’s office.

That means a lot of viable candidates. Voters have to find ways to sort them out.

“One way they make distinctions are personal considerations,” said presidential scholar Stephen Hess, a politics professor at George Washington University.

“They may actually be less interested in someone’s position on social security than whether they kept their marriage vows.”

If that’s the case, Rudy Giuliani, who enjoys a sterling reputation as a strong leader through the horrors of Sept. 11, 2001, could be facing some big challenges.

He’s the early front-runner among Republicans, leading John McCain and well ahead of Mitt Romney.

But Giuliani’s 21-year-old son might not have helped the campaign when he recently said he’s estranged from his dad and has “a little problem” with his third wife Judith.

The incredible scrutiny of White House wannabes is on Giuliani’s progressive stand on abortion and gay rights that many Republicans don’t share, not to mention a very public separation from his second wife and his first marriage to a second cousin once removed.

Divorce was a disqualifier for the Oval Office until Adlai Stevenson became the Democratic presidential nominee in 1952. Ronald Reagan was the first divorcee to win the presidency in 1980.

But it’s still an open question what Americans will make of two failed marriages, particularly if adultery’s involved.

In a bid to get the worst behind him should he jump into the race, conservative Republican leader Newt Gingrich recently admitted he had an affair while pushing to impeach President Bill Clinton for lying under oath about his dalliance.

Gingrich eventually left wife No. 2 to marry the woman, now wife No. 3.

Romney, a one-term former Massachusetts governor, epitomizes family values. But his Mormonism is giving pause to evangelical Christians who see it as some kind of cult.

And these days, he can’t get away with the strategy of John F. Kennedy, who said his Catholicism was irrelevant to his qualifications for the presidency.

Then there’s the health issue.

No one really noticed that Kennedy had Addison’s disease or that Franklin Roosevelt was already very ill when he was elected to a fourth term in 1944, said Hess.

But physical stamina isn’t overlooked anymore.

Giuliani, 62, felt compelled to stress recently that he’s been cancer-free for six years.

It’s even more of an issue for McCain, known to Americans as the tough former Vietnam war prisoner who withstood torture for years and nearly beat George W. Bush for the Republican nomination in 2000.

Nevertheless, he’s had skin cancer and is facing a lot of questions about his age - he’ll be 72 next year.

“I’m older than dirt, more scars than Frankenstein, but I learned a few things along the way,” says McCain, who would be the oldest

first-term president if he won. Reagan was 69 when he became president, and 73 when re-elected.

The health of political spouses is also a factor, with the revelation that Elizabeth Edwards is facing cancer again after her first diagnosis during the 2004 race.

Husband John Edwards, a vice-presidential candidate then and now running third in the Democratic pack behind Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, vowed to keep going, telling Americans not to vote for him out of sympathy.

He seemed to get a small bump in a poll taken right after he and his wife made the emotional televised announcement with upbeat frankness.

But analysts are speculating about the long-term impact of the news.

In a 60 Minutes interview, he addressed questions about whether his decision belied a monumental ambition and a willingness to put work before family. “I think part of the evaluation of a candidate for president is a personal evaluation of the character and integrity and honesty of a candidate,” he said later.

It’s a different kind of partner issue for Clinton, as analysts speculate about “the Bill factor.”

The former first lady captured a lot of sympathy with her stoic grace during the embarrassing revelations about Monica Lewinsky.

But many wonder just what kind of impact Clinton’s husband will have on her chances, and whether his role in a second Clinton White House would be the kind of two-for-one deal the couple espoused during his two terms.

Clinton had mostly avoided campaigning with him until he headlined a fundraiser earlier this month that brought in more than US$2 million.

At the event, she said people everywhere ask her if she will make her husband secretary of state if she wins.

“I think that’s illegal. But I sure can make him ambassador to the world,” said Clinton.

Gaining some ground on her of late is Illinois Senator Barack Obama, whose skin colour and heritage have been endlessly analysed.

The first black candidate who’s in the top tier with a viable shot at the Oval Office, Obama transcends race for many as the son of a black Kenyan father whose Caucasian mother came from Kansas. He grew up mostly in Hawaii with his white relatives.

So far, Obama has withstood early scrutiny, having admitted in a best-selling book that he smoked dope.

From morality to character, health and heritage, “all of these things are factors, of course,” said Hess.

“But we won’t know how important they were until the polls tell us after the vote.”