America is Not Ready for a Bachelor President

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC)

If the presidential election of 1856 were held today, James Buchanan would not be elected president for a variety of reasons.  For starters, no one's going to vote for a guy whose most recent credential is Ambassador to the United Kingdom (for proof, name any other Ambassador to the United Kingdom...that's what I thought).  Secondly, a third party presidential candidate, even if that candidate is a former president, would probably have serious trouble gaining enough support to throw an election in the savvy world of today (there's a reason no third party has been taken seriously since Ralph Nader).  But perhaps most tellingly, conventional wisdom has stated time and again that America will not vote for a bachelor president, certainly not in an era where the First Lady is one of the most famous celebrities on the planet and where campaigns are waged constantly and need multiple figureheads to help win the election.

That theory is being tested right now by Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, who is running for the presidency while being a lifelong bachelor.  Already, despite having a pretty robust resume and a LOT of other issue fodder to trumpet by the media (he's arguably the biggest hawk running for president right now-perhaps something there?), the media has become obsessed with the concept of him being a bachelor president and what that will mean.  He's had to answer questions of who would serve as his First Lady (his sister, for the curious), and whether or not people would care about his single status.

It's a weird sort of conundrum, of course, as the majority of voting age Americans are now considered single: 50.2%.  It's worth noting with that number that some have been married (but are divorced or widowed) and that a good chunk are below the age people typically get married, but it's still a sizable portion of the voting age populace, so this is a weird topic of conversation to be having.

However, there's a lot of stigma that comes with being unmarried, particularly when you have been a lifelong bachelor, and this is something that Lindsey Graham has been made aware of both on a professional level, and I suspect, on a personal level.  Particularly for a single man, the question becomes "why?" didn't he get married.  Graham, a lawyer and military vet who eventually become a successful congressman and senator, is on-paper a pretty solid catch for any prospective mate, and this has left many wondering if he might be single due to his sexual orientation.  Indeed, Graham has had more gay rumors than almost any other public official in the past several years (save Aaron Schock), and is frequently mimicked by Jon Stewart, for example, in a flouncy Southern accent.  Polling indicates that 33% of Americans would not be comfortable with a gay president, and these sorts of polls generally tend to underestimate that number.  Graham's bachelorhood may not be a problem in-and-of-itself (though it deprives him of an obvious surrogate on talk shows and on the stump in the way that Michelle Obama and Ann Romney have served successfully in recent years), but if he is perceived as gay that could be an issue as he tries to convince a party where gay marriage is still unpopular (common sense indicates most of that 33% would lean to the right).

There's also anecdotal evidence that could hurt Graham.  While he can hardly be charged with, say, not being considerate of other people's children going to war (Graham is a 33-year veteran of the Air Force), there will certainly be those who question whether or not he can make laws about the American family without experience as a husband and father.  If you doubt this, then you're a bit naive.  Think of how constantly President Obama brings out the CYB card toward why he wants to make an unpopular decision by name-checking his roles as a husband or a father.  This is something that everyone constantly talks about on the campaign trail-wanting to make the world better for their children or grandchildren (Hillary and Bill Clinton mention Charlotte literally every chance they get).  Frequently, as a single person myself, I can relate to this-if I had a dollar for every time I have been told "you can't understand unless you're a parent" regarding an issue or topic, I could fund Lindsey Graham's entire presidential campaign.

So, no, quite frankly, I don't think America is ready for a single president.  I'm aware we've had them before (not just Buchanan, but also Grover Cleveland when he first entered office), but single people and childless people are one of the few groups of society can be prejudiced against without any sort of conversation about how that is wrong.  Graham may have all of the credentials that one would ask for out of a Republican nominee, but I think the lack of a ring on his finger means that he won't be able to compete for the White House in a serious way.  It's not fair, but it's the truth.