Margaretta “Happy” Rockefeller, philanthropist, socialite and wife of the former vice president and New York governor Nelson Rockefeller, died May 19 at age 88 at her home in Tarrytown, N.Y. While she became known later in life as a patron of the arts whose name regularly appeared in society columns, she’s known in the world of politics as the spouse who torpedoed her husband’s shot at the presidency in 1964.
Why was Happy so lethal to her husband’s White House ambitions?
Simple. In the 1960s, divorce and infidelity were still considered fatal character flaws, and Mrs. Rockefeller was both Nelson’s second wife and a full 18 years younger. Throw some children and upset spouses into the mix, and you’ve got a toxic homewrecker cocktail.
Former Connecticutt Republican senator Prescott Bush, a longtime Rockefeller supporter, vented to the New York Times, “Have we come to the point where a governor can desert his wife and children and persuade a young woman to abandon her four children and husband? Have we come to the point where one of the two great parties will confer its greatest honor on such a one? I venture to hope not.”
Echoing that sentiment was an official of the Michigan Republican Party, who told the Gray Lady that Rockefeller’s nuptials made the New York governor’s presidential candidacy not viable. “The rapidity of it all – he gets a divorce, she gets a divorce – and the indication of the break-up of two homes. Our country doesn’t like broken homes.”
This feeling was backed up by the polls. Politico’s Marsha R. Barrett dug up the numbers and found that Gallup conducted a poll the week Rockefeller remarried and discovered that the 20-point lead he had the month before over GOP Arizona Sen. Barry Goldwater was down to 6 points; it dropped to 3 points two weeks later. By June, Rockefeller led by just 1 percent and in July, Goldwater took the lead for the first time – with 31 percent to Rockefeller’s 27 percent – and never looked back.
Even the Rockefeller camp seemed happy to blame Happy. In his tome about the 1964 campaign, “The Real Rockefeller: The Story of the Rise, Decline and Resurgence of the Presidential Aspirations of Nelson Rockefeller,” author Frank Gervasi wrote that the Rockefellers returned from their honeymoon in Venezuela facing a “political hornet’s nest” and blamed the collapse of his campaign on his marriage.
Since Happy, spouses of presidential aspirants have made missteps that have sent campaign managers to the Excedrin bottle. Michelle Obama’s infamous line at a campaign stop in Madison, Wis., is one flub that comes to mind. This was where she said, “People in this country are ready for change and hungry for a different kind of politics and … for the first time in my adult life I am proud of my country because it feels like hope is finally making a comeback.”
But this faux pas didn’t cost her husband the race.
As we look to the 2016 campaign, I think there is one spouse with the potential to destroy a campaign – Bill Clinton.
Unlike most spouses of presidential candidates, Bill has a significant amount of power, independent of the campaign. This includes pulling the strings at the influential, financially lucrative, but politically problematic Clinton Global Foundation, long relationships with the powerful both at home and abroad, and the ability to garner 24/7 media attention every time he opens his mouth.
When you combine these powers with his affinity for shady characters, his knack for getting involved in tabloid scandals and an infamous hair-trigger temper, the Hillary Clinton campaign has quite a wild card on its hands.
The challenge will be in keeping Bill happy, without turning him into Happy.
Staff opinion columnist John Phillips can be heard weekdays at 3 p.m. on “The Drive Home with Jillian Barberie and John Phillips” on KABC/AM.