On NBC, 17 Jun 2007, Chris Mathews asked on his self-titled show “What are Americans looking for in their next first lady?”. On a panel of 12 voters all went for a Laura Bush first lady over the Hilary Clinton first lady.

http://mediamatters.org/items/200706170003

To be fair the question asked was two dimensional with a thin panel of a dozen voters. They only gave the options of Hillary and Laura.

MATTHEWS: We put it to “The Matthews Meter,” twelve of our regular panelists: “Do Americans want to return to the Hillary model of first lady, or do they like the Laura Bush model?” This amazed me. By a unanimous vote, the meter says voters prefer the Laura Bush model.

KAY: Laura Bush is incredibly popular, even though her husband is very unpopular. Hillary Clinton was not very popular, even when Bill Clinton had good approval ratings. People –

MATTHEWS: But why was she unpopular? Because she was too far to the left? –

KAY: It’s not — OK, first of all, it’s not a very easy position, being first lady, or even running to be first lady, and many have been criticized for different aspects. But with Hillary Clinton, there was a feeling that she was too eager for power, that she was too ambitious, that she was trying to promote herself as being president, almost, when she hadn’t been elected. They felt uncomfortable. That clip that we showed earlier in the program about how she wasn’t going to stay home and bake cookies and have teas, that alienates a lot of people, and you’re not going to hear her say it this time around, I’m absolutely sure of that.

MATTHEWS: Michelle — Michelle Obama is a lawyer, she’s an Ivy League grad. She’s got, what, a degree from Yale Law, or Harvard or whatever, and she says she’s going to continue her practice, continue to take care of her kids. Isn’t she more the Hillary model?

NORRIS: I think — I don’t know that she’s more the Hillary model. She’s a lawyer, so they have similarities there. I think the question that was posed to The Matthews Meter — no disrespect to those who participated in that, though — was –

MATTHEWS: Unanimous vote.

NORRIS: Well — but I don’t think it — it reflect — it is reflective of what you actually see on the campaign trail this year. What you see –

MATTHEWS: Oh, good.

NORRIS: — is a very different –

MATTHEWS: So they’re wrong.

NORRIS: — and what you see are people who, who actually reflect the way many women live. They’re juggling careers and kids and you see a very different kind of spouse on the road.

KAY: It’s interesting that Michelle Obama has decided to say, “I’m going to step back from my career,” that she’s actually taken on more of a domestic image. Talking about things like having to unblock the toilets, for example, how her husband doesn’t put the butter away. She’s almost deliberately promoting a much more middle-class — the kinds of things I think women can relate to.

FINEMAN: Please.

CARLSON: Well, let me just say, I think when she says he doesn’t put his clothes away and he leaves the crumbs around, he’s a pig, she is following a sitcom schtick. Tried and true. My husband, the fool. My sort of slightly out-of-it, dorky husband. I think it’s emasculating, actually. I think she comes — wait, hold on, let me –

[crosstalk]

CARLSON: Listen to me, I knew that would make you mad. But listen to what she says. She — again and again, she belittles her husband. “My husband, he’s not the savior you think he is.” Bill Clinton, by contrast — Bill Clinton never said a bad thing about his wife.

MATTHEWS: Howard, last word coming up here.

FINEMAN: As a voter in The Matthews Meter –

MATTHEWS: Yes, as one of those who voted we prefer Laura.

FINEMAN: — that was the only choice we were given. Michelle Obama has a chance to be something different because I think she’s more comfortable in her skin.

MATTHEWS: OK.

FINEMAN: Hillary, as first lady, was jumping out of her skin, saying, “I want the power” — of course, now she’s running. Michelle Obama is a younger woman, more confident, more settled as a professional person and wife.

MATTHEWS: Listening to you, Michele, I hear you say, people may want the more traditional, yesterday kind of wife, but they’re not going to get that choice, because the women who are running for first lady are modern.

NORRIS: Most of them, but not all of them, not all of them. I mean, there — you have a full spectrum here. You also have women who left their careers. You have Ann Romney, who is, I would say, probably more demure than Michelle Obama. But Michelle Obama is not talking about, when she steps out on the plank, and she’s, you know, a bit sassy, it’s not necessarily in terms of policies –

[crosstalk]

MATTHEWS: OK, this will go on, we’ll bring this up again later.

KAY: What they don’t like is when they listen to Judith Nathan saying, “I’m going to be in on Cabinet meetings.” I don’t think anyone in the country is saying, “Oh yeah, that’s going to make me vote for [Rudy] Giuliani.”

MATTHEWS: I’ll be right back with scoops and predictions.

Obama has a lot of socialist solutions that may have America looking more like Europe. Socialism is a dirt word amongst so called “conservatives”. But the irony is that conservatives and “liberals” have BOTH been moving us toward socialist solution (i.e. education, medicare, medicaid an others supported by Reagan and other conservacrats lifted to god status).

Even though most of my views are Libertarian, I am not entirely opposed to social programs to take care of our elderly, veterans and disabled. Further, if social programs can empower and bring out the best in US citizens, I see NO problem with that. Empowering programs such as government grants will help us as a whole. (guess I disagree with RP on that issue).

“give a man a fish and he’ll eat for a day, teach a man to fish and he’ll eat forever.”

ref:

reagan – and medicaid

http://www.google.com/search?source=ig&hl=en&rlz=&q=reagan+supports+medicaid

Reagan – and social schooling

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&safe=active&q=reagan+supports+department+of+education