Anne Michaud, Journalist and Author of "Why They Stay"
Your World of Creativity
Mark Stinson
5.0 • 45 Ratings
🗓️ 10 January 2022
⏱️ 15 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In this episode, we talk with Anne Michaud, Author of "Why They Stay"
As a political journalist and a reporter for the Wall Street Journal, Anne Michaud covered Bill Clinton's 1996 re-election campaign, Anthony Weiner's 2005 mayoral bid, and Eliot Spitzer's rise and fall as New York's governor from 2006 to 2008. Few folks have had the front row seat to the spectacular fall from grace of these politicians and the women who endured the cataclysm with them.
Which got her wondering--as so many of us have--why did most of these women stick it out--or stay for as long as they did? Were they simply doing the Stand By Your Man blues, or did they have other motivations?
Why They Stay: Sex Scandals, Deals, and Hidden Agenda of Eight Political Wives is the result of her musings and her deeply researched and fascinating analysis.
Anne chose to look at eight couples and explore the similarities between them -- how the women responded to the crisis and its aftermath. These women made bold decisions that revealed their own agendas.
· Hillary & Bill Clinton: One masterful decision launched her political career
· Jackie & John F. Kennedy: Coping in bed and all the way to the bank
· Eleanor & Franklin D. Roosevelt: A lifeless marriage sparks a social champion
· Marion Stein & Jeremy Thorpe: Riding out British scandal to provide for her sons
· Wendy & David Vitter: Married to the Party versus married to a man
· Silda Wall & Elliot Spitzer: Real-life drama spawns TV show The Good Wife
· Huma Abedin & Anthony Weiner: How to win against a man and the Media
· Melania & Donald Trump: A foreigner's desire to live the American dream
Anne found some interesting correlations between all of them and Elizabeth Woodville, the "White Queen" of English history. A widow, she married Edward IV for love, endured his promiscuity to stay and wield power, and ultimately, outlasted him to build the Tudor legacy through engineering her daughter's marriage to Edward's successor.
Anne looked at 5 factors in her books--how deeply are these women committed to being the family emotional caretaker, how patriarchal values drive their actions, how motivated are they about building a family legacy, the degree to which financial and emotional security drives their actions, and do they have a sense of patriotism that inspires them to overlook the misdeeds of their husband for the greater good. She assigned each a "White Queen Quotient" measured against Woodville's iconic role as the ultimate political spouse in the face of scandalous male behavior.
While we as spectators can only speculate about what drives them, Why They Stay makes a great case for what causes each of these women to play out their roles as stay-beyond-the-embarrassment wives. If Hillary Clinton had left her marriage, she might only be known as the spurned wife of a retired politician. Instead, she became the first woman to run for U.S. president on a major party ticket, a U.S. Senator and Secretary of State. These political wives aren't powerless pawns. They are shrewder than you expect. Why They Stay pulls back the curtain to reveal why women throughout history stand by their man...for better and for worse.
In addition to her reportage at the Wall Street Journal, Anne previously wrote a nationally syndicated op-ed column for Newsday from 2008 to 2018. She has won more than 25 writing and reporting awards and has twice been named "Columnist of the Year," by the New York News Publishers Association and the New York State Associated Press Association. Her work has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, The Boston Globe, Newsweek, BusinessWeek.com, Crain's NY Business, Cincinnati Magazine and more. Anne has appeared on numerous television and radio programs, including WNYC's The Brian Lehrer Show, NY1's Reporters' Roundtable, and Fox 5 News WNYW.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaudanne/
Website
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Taff into your most original thinking. Organize your ideas and create the opportunities to launch a creative work. Unlocking your world of creativity with best-selling author and brand-innovator Mark Stinson. |
| 0:25.0 | Sex scandals, deals, and hidden agendas of nine political wives. When we're talking with the author of a book, Why They Stay. And Michelle is our guest, she's a political journalist and author. |
| 0:37.0 | Thanks Mark, great to be here. |
| 0:39.0 | This is a book of biographies about political couples focusing on the wives who stay with their cheating politician husbands. |
| 0:46.0 | And as award-winning journalist right now with Crane's New York business in the past, she's been with Wall Street Journal and News Day. |
| 0:53.0 | Well, I think I've probably caught you out of break from the keyboard working there at Crane's New York. |
| 0:59.0 | Yes, that's absolutely true. |
| 1:01.0 | So what's the pulse of business these days before we jump into your book? What are people interested in reading most about? |
| 1:07.0 | Well, the city just got a new mayor go office January 1st. So there's a lot of anticipation about what that's going to mean. And boy, so many changes trying to walk our way out of the pandemic in terms of seeing how the hospitality industries are coming back or not. |
| 1:27.0 | A little anticipation, a little bit of anxiety. |
| 1:31.0 | Yes, all of the above. So we want to talk about your book today, and then of course the creative process that went into it. |
| 1:38.0 | This book, Why They Stay about political marriages, more from the wife's point of view, I think, as I was reviewing it. |
| 1:45.0 | The question, I mean, we're seeing the scandals in the marriage unfold. And it is exactly the question we are screaming. |
| 1:54.0 | Why do they stay? What did you find? |
| 1:58.0 | Well, I wanted to look at the wives because for that very reason that you mentioned that these scandals come and go and we focus on the man and many people have written about, why do they cheat? |
| 2:12.0 | But I thought, let's turn that around and look at the other human being in this equation. |
| 2:18.0 | I did a lot of research and many couples starting in my book, we start in the 30s with the Roosevelt. |
| 2:25.0 | I think I found that there were reasons they stay that are common to any couple that goes through this kind of a crisis in their marriage. |
| 2:35.0 | For example, they want security. They want to their feeling responsible for the family's emotional health. |
| 2:43.0 | But I think that there are also reasons that are particular to political couples that I also was able to trace across the eight couples that I profiled. |
| 2:54.0 | And I think you see that they have a sense of patriotism for what they want to achieve in the world. |
| 3:00.0 | And that was one of the elements of them getting together in the first place. |
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