ShareThisNEW YORK - Like many of her predecessors, Michelle Obama's poll ratings have remained high, while her husband's numbers slump as he struggles to defend his ambitious agenda. As long as a first lady remains aloof from politics, the public judges her by a different standard.
Recent reports suggest that Obama is considering a drastic role change. She recently told one White House visitor that she "found it hard to sleep" when she thought of the possibility that the push for "Obamacare" might end in defeat the way "Hillarycare" expired in 1993.
Obama could do worse than study the first three first ladies as possible role models. To a remarkable degree, they represent three different ways to do the job. Our first first lady, Martha Washington, presided over a mini-White House on Cherry Street in New York. An innately modest woman, she joked about being treated as a "great somebody." But she soon discovered she had an important role to play in her husband's presidency.
When Martha arrived in New York on May 27, 1789, numerous critics were growling because his weekly receptions were for men only and were much too formal. Others, mostly members of Congress, complained about the poor quality of the dinners he served.
Martha took charge of the kitchen, and soon guests were telling friends how deliciously they had dined and wined. Next, she launched her own weekly receptions, at which ladies were welcomed and everyone was charmed by Martha's relaxed, cheerful style. Equally important was how Martha made friends with Vice President John Adams' formidable wife, Abigail. She was particularly pleased by Martha's insistence that she join her in greeting the guests.
Martha had some strong political opinions -- notably a fierce dislike of Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson. She shared these thoughts with nobody but George. She chose to keep overt politics out of her role as the president's wife.
Abigail Adams, on the other hand, had an openly political partnership with her husband. John frequently felt adrift without his "dearest friend" to advise him. When John became president, Abigail discovered the dark side of such an intense political relationship.
Partisan warfare was as ferocious in the 1790s as it is today. Abigail read everything that John's newspaper critics wrote, and took their savage denunciations to heart. Soon she was urging him to persuade Congress to silence the "scribblers." The result was the Alien and Sedition Acts, which made it a crime to criticize a president.
The censorship law only worsened John's unpopularity and redoubled the critics' ferocity. In the final year of the presidency, Abigail reeled back to Massachusetts and had a nervous breakdown. John rushed to her side and soon plunged into a depression of his own, all but ignoring the presidency for seven months -- another political disaster that made his defeat by Thomas Jefferson in 1800 a foregone conclusion.
When it became apparent that President Jefferson backed his secretary of state, James Madison, as his successor in 1808, enemies focused on the pint-sized Madison's marriage to buxom Dolley Payne Todd. Dolley combined an effervescent personality with a fondness for racy French gowns. Suddenly, the nation's capital swirled with tales of sexual orgies in which Dolley supposedly participated.
For the first time, the politicians and their newspaper allies encountered a woman who could outthink as well as outcharm them. Dolley did not make the slightest attempt to change her style. She coolly informed friends that the key to dealing with such slanders was to "listen without emotion" when they were repeated in your hearing, knowing that "they were framed but to play on your sensibility."
It did not hurt that Dolley had the backing of the capital's chief newspaper, the National Intelligencer. The editor's wife was a close friend. By the time they counted the votes, Dolley was a political force unto herself. The losing candidate, Charles Cotesworth Pinckney of South Carolina, whined that he had lost to "Mr. and Mrs. Madison. I might have had a better chance if I faced Mr. Madison alone."
Maybe Michelle Obama can work a similar miracle for her embattled husband.
(Thomas Fleming is the author of the new book, "The Intimate Lives of the Founding Fathers" (Smithsonian/HarperCollins). He is a past president of the Society of American Historians.)
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)
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