May 21, 2008

A Fine Line?

"A tip for presidential hopefuls: if you want your husband or wife exempt from scrutiny, sending them on the campaign trail as your surrogate or making them a key advisor isn't a good idea," writes Jennifer Rubin at Pajamas Media today.

Her article quotes political consultant Todd Harris, who formerly was Fred Thompson's Communications Director, saying:

"You walk a very fine line when you start using a candidate's spouse as a surrogate for the candidate. On the one hand, it's always been an article of faith that spouses are and should be off limits. But when a campaign starts using the spouse to carry very political, and often negative, messages, that lines really start to get blurred."

As I just told a reporter for the Los Angeles Times a few minutes ago, campaign surrogates are fair game for scrutiny and criticism for things they say and do on the campaign trail, even if they happen to be married to the candidate.

After all, the Obama campaign did not find it detestable to criticize Hillary Clinton's husband for things he said on the campaign trail while giving speeches on her behalf, and Barack didn't go on Good Morning America to whine and tell people to "Lay off Hillary's husband."

Neither did Hillary, by the way. And if she had tried to claim statements made by her spouse on the campaign trail were off limits to scrutiny and criticism, you know the Obama campaign and the national media would have laughed hysterically at her.