The Presidential Contenders: Who Is Responsive to People Without Lobbyists?

I predict a Marilyn Quayle moment. For anyone who missed or repressed the 1992 Republican convention, the moment arrived when Dan Quayle's wife took the podium and waved the family values flag. She disparaged working women. She expressed pity for the liberals who were (in her opinion) "disappointed because most women do not wish to be liberated from their essential natures as women." Democrats cringed first, but by the time Marilyn Quayle had finished her chastising, even supporters such as Peggy Noonan had to concede that she sometimes seemed "like a Stepford wife who has a few wires just a little too tight." This distaff culture warrior set out to capture the moral high ground, but instead tumbled into a thicket of ridicule.

It could happen again. In the first Republican debate, Senator Sam Brownback decried the 36% of children born to single mothers, and promised to "lead ethically, lead in rebuilding the family." Asked to name the people he would most like to see in his Cabinet, Mitt Romney instead teed off on the babies who were showing up in the cradle. "The American family is seeing an explosion of out-of-wedlock births," he railed, and that had to be addressed. "I think that's the heart of the Republican Party: the American family."

Perhaps Brownback and Romney were not just posturing as "holier than thou." Maybe their concern really is for the well-being of children, and they truly believe that children do better if they are raised by married parents than by a single parent (a claim, by the way, that is grossly exaggerated and sometimes wrong, as I discovered in the research for my book, SINGLED OUT). Still, perhaps they should consider something else as well. If more than a third of children are born to single mothers, that means there are quite a few voting age single moms in the country. When these potential single voters look around at the state of the nation, do they see themselves and their children as the "problem" most in need of ethical reform? And when they hear the two-parent family described as "the heart of the Republican Party," does that entice them into the tent with the elephants, or do they instead smell dung, and turn and flee?

If someone is going to step in it this election season, I hope it will not be any of the Democratic candidates. I've made my case for the importance of single voters in this space before (here and here and here). In Singled Out, I present case studies of those who have stepped in it in their interactions with, or portrayals of, political leaders who are single. (A few examples: Chris Matthews, in an interview with Ralph Nader; Newsweek, in a story on David Souter; Bob Woodward and Newsweek and the New Yorker in their commentary on Condoleezza Rice.) But how do I get the word to the candidates, or at least someone on their staff?

Probably I can't, but I had to try. So I tucked Singled Out into envelopes, along with my Huff Posts about single voters and an op-ed I wrote during the last Presidential election, added a handwritten note, and sent the care packages to the first five candidates on my list: Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, Dennis Kucinich, Barack Obama, and Bill Richardson. That was early April, and I thought that was the end of it.

Not even two weeks later, I had a response from Obama for America. "Dear Bella," it began, "Thank you for your suggestion for Barack Obama." Then a page of suggestions for how to help the campaign. The response from John Edwards was even quicker, dated the same day that my package arrived. My address was hand-written on the envelope. Inside was a brief, personalized, and upbeat letter, beginning with "Dear Bella, Thank you so much for your book, Singled Out. It was very kind of you to think of me."

So far, no word from the others.

I hold no illusions that my suggestions have made it into the hands or minds of Obama, Edwards, or even any influential members of their campaigns. I'm not even sure that writing personal responses and slipping them into hand-written envelopes is the best use of campaign time and resources. I'd like to think that it is (and I have to admit that my sometimes cynical heart was softened a bit by these letters), but I'm a social scientist first of all, and so I'd like to see the results of an empirical test.

In the meantime, though, I wonder about the answers I did and did not receive. Do they speak to the responsiveness of the candidates (or their campaigns) to PWOLs (People Without Lobbyists)? In the case of John Edwards, there does seem to be a pattern. He was the first of the candidates to reply to questions about Iraq, and then about global warming, from the grassroots activist group, Democracy for America.

My cynical side rolls its eyes and reminds me of the candidate who spent his campaign vowing to be a "uniter, not a divider," who denounced nation-building, and promised to bring honor and dignity to the White House.

Still, imagine where we could be now if People Without Lobbyists had as much say about the fate of our nation as people with them.