In California, a House Divided Stands Strong
It is one thing to disagree about politics with your spouse at a backyard barbecue. It is quite another to do it in front of the 38 million people of California, with apparent and abundant passion.
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The lawn of their Brentwood home has dueling campaign signs. The breakfast table has become a casual debating society. Ms. Shriver is even threatening to bring a life-size cutout of her preferred candidate into the house, something the governor has seen her do in other elections. When one of the candidates screws up, Mr. Schwarzenegger said of the cutouts, the kids carry them outside.
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I think there are great benefits to having kids grow up understanding that we do not live in a one-party system, Ms. Shriver said. That there are two ways at looking at an issue. To be patient, and to compromise, those are good lessons not just in politics but for life. I grew up believing there was only one way to think. There isnt.
It all began this winter when Mr. Schwarzenegger announced his allegiance to Mr. McCain, unsurprisingly, and then Ms. Shriver showed up quite surprisingly on the stage at a rally for Mr. Obama in Los Angeles proclaiming her support along with other members of the extended Kennedy family just days later.
On Super Tuesday, the governor awoke to a lawn full of Obama signs. Seeking fair and balanced landscaping, he immediately called his aides to procure an equal number of McCain signs. (Perhaps not the easiest request on the day when the Republicans were looking to deliver the state to Mr. McCain. Also not one, under the circumstances, to be farmed out to the first ladys office.)
While voters here are long accustomed to the Republican governor and his Kennedy-family wife, the spectacle of them avidly supporting two different presidential candidates is likely to become even more pronounced to the rest of the nation as the campaign enters the general election phase, with both playing an active role.
He and she are likely speakers at each partys convention this summer. Ms. Shriver has been mentioned as a possible chairwoman for Mr. Obamas California effort, and is considered to be one of its most endearing assets in the state.
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People get it, he said. People know that she is not for Bush even though she is sitting there at the convention with me.
Time spent around the kitchen table is sometimes enlivened by discussions on topics ranging from Mr. Obamas pastor to the fuel tax (because nothing says, Please stop hiding the peas under your napkin, like a good gas tax riff) and gender issues. The girls were for Hillary, and now they are with Obama, the governor said. The boys are more with McCain.
It is a relationship that gives hope to other mixed marriages.
