Why They Stay

Sex Scandals, Deals, and Hidden Agendas of Nine Political Wives

By: Anne Michaud

Narrated by: Sara Morsey

Why They Stay explores the reasoning and motivation of wives who stay with their politician-husbands after they cheat. Hillary Clinton couldn't have known in 1998 how her husband's high-profile philandering would play out. Would he be rehabilitated in the public eye? She took the gamble. Had she left the marriage, today she might be the spurned wife of a retired politician instead of the first American woman to run for president on a major party ticket. Looking back on the path chosen by the nine political wives profiled in this book, we have the evidence to see a pattern as old as the dynastic maneuverings of England's medieval queens. The women married to the "royalty" of our times, politicians, make similar cold calculations in order to hold onto their "thrones" and their family's history-making potential. After covering politicians for decades, acclaimed columnist Anne Michaud switched her gaze to the women behind the cheating men. Drawing from multiple sources that span the Roosevelts' marriage to the more recent scandal involving Hillary Clinton's closest aide Huma Abedin (wife of sexter Anthony Weiner), Why They Stay: Sex Scandals, Deals, and Hidden Agendas of Nine Political Wives argues that when it comes to the "power behind the throne", women in the limelight weigh the risks and rewards. They remain loyal to their men, because of complex, often unconscious forces. From mapping a path to power to laudable notions of holding the family together, Michaud examines the uniquely challenging Faustian bargains that political wives grapple with, even as the public spotlight illuminates their every move.

©2017 Anne Michaud (P)2017 Anne Michaud

We all wonder

I enjoyed this book very much. It was well-researched, on a subject so many of us wonder about: ladies who stay with their politically humiliated and compromised husbands. Recent couples in trouble include Anthony Weiner and Huma Abedin, and the Clintons. Some of the scandals happened many years ago, and I was not familiar with all of them. The book gives a biography of each person, and the history of the couples' relationships, as well as details of the scandals. But it was not salacious or unduly graphic. The narrator, Sara Morsey, gave a rich reading of the book, suitable to the subject.

liberal bias

Vitter is not once but many times called extreme for having a good rating by the ACU. Only he is called a hypocrite. Liberals work for good causes with no insight into their hypocrisy, lies, or extreme political views. Or "as progressives of course they wanted their children to make a difference." Discount this twisted theory.