The good old girlies make a comeback

ELECTIONEERING was different in my day. Back then, we plastered on a smile, hooked up with a local sage who knew the territory and hit the road (sometimes literally, if the sage needed a tot or two to moving). That was it. There were exceptions course but most of us girlies stayed in line. We made no speeches, there were no pesky reporters wanting in depth interviews - and who cared about anything we might have to say anyway...? What we did was smile incessantly. Sure, we got abuse, but we took it on the chin. And smiled some more.

We had a cause and the cause was a man blessed with broad, cross party appeal, so campaigning was mostly fun, feverish, even addictive. But the women's movement was steamrolling through the West and opening our eyes. And dopey girlies everywhere began to see that though the cause nearly always seemed to be a man, support system was nearly always women - women who kept sober and smiling, stuffing the envelopes, sticking pins in maps and passing the sandwiches.

Support, support, support. There was nothing strange about it; for the time, it was no different to the carry on in the local rugby club or parish hall. Always women, always willing.

But that's 20 years ago. Ancient history. Far better to look at how far we've come. So let's look at some latter day campaigners. There's Hillary Clinton - one of the top 100 lawyers in the US, personable, fiercely articulate, brave and bright enough to come up with a plan to reform the ferociously complex and inadequate healthcare system.

Then there's Elizabeth Dole. The only woman in the Reagan cabinet, with 100,000 employees at her bidding; head of the American Red Cross with a paid staff of 32,000 and a revenue stream of $1.7 billion; commands $35,000 an engagement on the lecture circuit (much of which goes to charity). And, of course, there's Cherie Booth QC. Top employment lawyer with earnings of more than £200,000 a year (or some four times the income of her husband, Tony Blair).

These were never girlies; that much was understood the minute they hit the campaign trail. Bob Dole was crowing about his "independent, high powered woman" and their "lifelong partnership of equals" long before the Clintons' two for the price of one candidacy was a gleam in a strategist's eye. Staffers' opening gambits on previous campaigns routinely included the line: "We've got two Doles here, both of whom are qualified to be president of the US."

AS for Hillary, it was always said that she was brighter than Bill. When Bill was elected President, many Americans believed they were voting for a power couple - a two for the price of one deal. When Bill gave speeches, that's what he was offering. When she gave speeches, she spoke as "we". No one felt short changed when Hillary turned up to speak instead of Bill.

Cherie Booth always had serious political ambitions of her own. Tony got there first, but few doubt that Cherie has as good a brain as Tony, maybe better. So here we are, at the turn of the century, graced with these women with nothing to prove in their personal or professional lives, who have hit the hustings for decades, with brains, charisma and real political convictions.

And now, what are we hearing from them, these "equal partners", these "independent" women? What have these insiders got to say about modern politics, education, welfare, the great ethical and moral issues of the day?

Nothing, is the answer. The strategists, it seems, don't want to play that old power couple game anymore. So take a hike, Hillary, Elizabeth and Cherie. Too many people were getting frightened, feeling threatened. You don't believe it? Well, strategists - if for all their sins - merely do their damnedest to reflect the zeitgeist.

And when they sit down to hone the weapons called politicians' wives, what are they putting their bets on? Ordinariness, that's what; down home normality. And the new model? Step forward, Norma Major, non working wife, seamstress and home maker.

Not that there's anything wrong with Norma or her calling, mind. But it is a bit of a turnaround, isn't it? After years of dogs' abuse directed at "the feminists" for saddling women in the home with a terrible inferiority complex, suddenly the shoe is on the other foot. Hail, Norma, the standard bearer.

But how did it happen? It seems that Hillary did it, all on her own - no, not with the health plan that didn't make it, or by standing by her man through - his affairs and sexual harassment suits. No, it was when she said: "Well, listen, I could have stayed at home and baked cookies." Well, she had just the one daughter and time might have lain a bit heavy on her hands, what with Bill's - eh - busy schedule.

But suddenly she was involved in a frantic cookie bake war with Barbara Bush, the cookies being a metaphor for the hearts and minds of America's women. So now, where do we stand? Well, in Hillary's speeches the conjugal "we" has become "my husband"; she no longer campaigns for, but with, him.

PERISH the mention of that desperately needed healthcare plan, she talks instead of adopting a child. Elizabeth Dole, meanwhile, has been put back in her box in a new edition of the Doles' joint 1988 biography. Back then, the book's opening entry was written by Elizabeth: "I had spent the better part of a lifetime arguing that women should be able to make their own choices, to define their own contributions to society."

In the new, politically corrected version, that entry has been kicked back to page 271 and the bit about choices has vanished, rubbed away, as the writer Gail Sheehy puts it, "by time, by Hillary's mistakes, and by the political tempest raging over the role of women - again".

Nearer home, Cherie guest edits Prima magazine ("as a keen knitter myself, I love the mother and daughter jumpers") and "battles it out" with Norma ("on my own I will use the tea bag more than once") in articles headed: "The Wifely Wars" and "Who is the most domestic of them all?" And the smiles grow more stomach churningly adoring each time the camera finds them gazing on their motley collection of husbands.

Is this what women voters really want? Is it this that the strategists see in the zeitgeist - that it is not the dreaded patriarchy after all, but other women who want their more publicly successful sisters to come down a peg or two and be more "normal"? American commentators have dubbed this the Year of the Silenced Partner. Is this as far as we've come in 20 years - still the good old girlies? And have we considered who stands to gain, ultimately, from it all?

Last year, after Finola Bruton's speech in the National Gallery before a mesmerised cross section of Irish women, there were many present who were profoundly wounded by its implications, but few fool enough to dispute her right to address the issues. Such a speech to such a gathering, however, might be an altogether riskier business coming up to election time. Will Finola Bruton get similar latitude in election year? We'll see.