Meet The Campaign Widows

by Erin Mantz

A whole informal “campaign widows club” is out there. On January’s Iowa Caucus night, Lisa Spies of Washington, DC hosted a “Returns Dinner” for five spouses of campaign staffers. Her husband of four years couldn’t attend; he’s living in Boston, working as Mitt Romney’s CFO and counsel. Though Spies and her husband try to meet when they can—they spent New Year’s Eve in Boston, a block from campaign headquarters—the day-to-day is living alone. “I’ve become close to my cat,” she says. Spies and her husband went to New Hampshire for the primary, but she was with donors, he was with campaign staff. Spies herself is a successful political fundraiser and volunteers as the DC chairwoman for “Women for Mitt.” But even this involvement doesn’t keep her from being a campaign widow.

Jim Doyle stopped visiting political websites. The ups and downs of campaign news just got to be too much, making or breaking his days—but not because he’s a campaign staffer. His wife is Patti Solis Doyle, campaign manager for Hillary Clinton. For the past year, this devoted dad has organized play dates, made doctors appointments, and done bedtime for their kids, ages 5 and 9. And he’s no stay-at-home dad; he has a full-time job of his own! Yet, the Doyles have implemented strategies to make campaign season work for their family, like holding Friday movie nights at home or bringing the kids to rallies to experience the excitement. Their fourth-grade daughter seems to have caught the spirit—a poster in her bedroom reads “When Women Vote, Women Win!”

Olivia Plouffe is a campaign widow who literally moved her life for the campaign. Her husband, David, became Obama’s campaign manager, which meant leaving her beloved Washington, DC lifestyle, job and new home for a Chicago high rise rental in a city where she knew no one. Now, she’s raising their three-year old son, missed Christmas with her parents for the first time ever, and can’t even remember her last “date night.” But she’s built a support network through her son’s preschool and at campaign headquarters, in addition to becoming a part-time volunteer consultant on the campaign. Believing in the campaign keeps her spirits up. “If I didn’t believe in the cause, I’d have a different attitude,” she says. “I look at these eighteen months as an adventure.”

I see it as an adventure, too, only it’s hard to sneak in snuggle time with someone who’s on night 393 of just six hours of sleep. As the lone parent with two boys, ages 6 and 3, it’s the little, nightly non-tangible things that are most trying: staying strong when my three-year old screams at bedtime; saying goodnight to the dog. I’m trying to manage household finances even though I am hopeless at math, and making split-second decisions about paint colors my husband might hate. To my husband’s credit, he somehow coached our six-year-old’s football team to victory last fall—and never missed a game.

Campaign widows are too clever to just complain. We know people are worse off than we are. People have lost spouses to death, divorce, or military service. But we’re in an odd place; neither here nor there. And here is the thing: Ours is a thankless job. We are a forgotten lot, because there are no resources or support groups for people going through campaign wars. Communities don’t rally around us. Neighbors don’t drop by with food or sympathy.