Modern American politics has become a family business. It seems that every successful campaign requires brochures picturing the candidate s happy home. For years politicians have publicized the personal to establish an image and to score political points. The history of the presidential couples shows that in an information age with a bureaucratic government, such political identity-building is essential. With diminished parties, omnipresent media, and a bankrupt government, presidents lead as much through exhortation as legislation, as much through personal example as political action.
Presidential couples are cultural leaders weaving together a national fantasy.
The American people want to watch a presidential love story. Since Franklin Roosevelt s New Deal expanded the role of the federal government in Americans daily lives, the presidency has become ever more powerful and more symbolically significant in American life. As the most famous man in America, his wife, his daughter, even his cat and dog, become role models for the nation. Since then, the country has acquired more nationalizing influences, more anchors, but Americans today still look to the presidential couple for reassurance, for stability, for political inspiration, and, often, for moral instruction. The intellectual, cultural, social, political, and technological revolutions of the twentieth century further shaped this concern.