I’ve avoided writing about presidential spouses, and I don’t waste a lot of time reading about them, either. That’s because, whatever interest we might have in a political marriage, who you marry really has nothing to do with how you govern, and nobody actually votes for a spouse. (Although that makes for an intriguing electoral reform, in a “Love Island” sort of way.)
By Matt Bai
That said, I’m eager to watch Doug Emhoff this fall, because what he’s charged with doing in this campaign is fascinating — and possibly very important, too.
It’s fascinating because when the second gentleman takes the stage in Chicago on Tuesday night, he will be auditioning for a role that no one in the history of America has ever held — that of first gentleman. Granted, he is the second man to ask for the part, but the other, Bill Clinton, was a former president and a sui generis political celebrity whose main job in 2016 was to get out of the way.
Aspiring first ladies have always had to strike a careful balance in front of the national audience; we ask them to be strong individuals in their own right, and yet, at the same time, not so strong or individual that they make the candidate seem weaker by comparison. They are supposed to demonstrate passion and relatability in one moment, then step to the side and gaze adoringly in the next.
Emhoff’s balancing act is almost the inverse. Were I writing his speech tonight (I was a speechwriter for a while in my 20s), I’d want him to sound mesmerized by Kamala Harris, attesting to her warmth and sense of humor as a wife and stepmom. But I’d also want to make sure he didn’t come off as wholly in the shadow of his wife. American men need to see Harris through her husband’s adoring eyes, without dismissing Emhoff as the kind of obsequious male figure they don’t really trust.
What makes Emhoff’s message potentially important to the campaign, however, is less about gender than it is about race and ethnicity.
This is fraught territory, so let’s step back for a moment. The thing that makes race relations in the United States so difficult to traverse is that none of us can ever know what’s said when we’re not in the room. It’s natural for my Black friends to assume that White people talk differently about race when it’s only White people in the meeting. Many of us who are White tend to assume the same about conversations among Black Americans.
Barack Obama surmounted this distrust by reminding White voters that his mother and grandparents were White, too. And as a guy, he didn’t have to contend with the pervasive trope of the angry Black woman.
If we’re being honest, there is probably a suspicion out there, among a lot of White men, or at least the White men who might be on the fence about voting for former president Donald Trump, that a Black female prosecutor from California such as Harris must think they’re all a bunch of racists and sexists.
At the same time, Harris has to be concerned about the perception of some American Jews, who are part of a critical Democratic voting bloc. Harris was notably vocal about human rights violations in the Israel-Gaza war when she met with Israel’s prime minister last month. It’s a safe bet that a lot of American Jews — and especially older ones — have questions about her support for Israel.
In both instances, it seems to me, Emhoff can be Harris’s most critical validator. As the White man she chose to marry, he is uniquely qualified to assure other White voters that Harris harbors no simmering private resentment. And as an American Jew who has spoken frequently about antisemitism these past few years, Emhoff can signal to Jewish voters that while Harris might hold Israel’s leadership in contempt, she’s not hiding some animus toward Jews or the Jewish state.
I’m guessing Harris’s experiences, as a half-Black and half-Indian woman in America, are more nuanced than she can explain. If any of us could stand in her shoes, I’m certain our feelings about race and power would be complicated, to say the least. Emhoff’s assignment, Tuesday night and in the months ahead, should be to uncomplicate that picture. His role should be to reassure a segment of White voters that there is nothing threatening about a President Kamala Harris, and that if there were, he’d damn well know about it.
Emhoff’s job is to make us believe that who you marry really does have something to do with how you’ll govern, after all.
