@article{439001,
      author = {Borrelli, MaryAnne.},
      url = {http://library.usi.edu/record/439001},
      title = {The politics of the president's wife [electronic resource]  /},
      publisher = {Texas A&M University Press,},
      abstract = {As the West Wing has grown in power and organizational  complexity during the modern presidency, so has the East  Wing, office home to the First Lady of the United States.  This groundbreaking work by MaryAnne Borrelli offers both  theoretical and substantive insight into behind-the-scenes  developments from the time of Lou Henry Hoover to the  unfolding tenure of Michelle Robinson Obama. Political  scientists and historians have recognized the personal  influence the First Lady can exercise with her husband, and  they have noted the moral, ethical, and sometimes policy  leadership certain presidentsʼ wives have offered.  Nonetheless, scholars and commentators alike have treated  the personal relationship and the professional relationship  as overlapping.  Borrelli offers a compelling  counter-perspective: that the presidentʼs wife exercises  power intrinsic to her role within the administration. Like  others within the presidency, she has sometimes presented  the presidentʼs views to constituents and sometimes  presented constituentsʼ views to the president, thus  taking on a representative function within the system. In  mediating president-constituent relationships, she has  given a historical and social frame to the presidency that  has enhanced its symbolic representation; she has served as  a gender role model, enriching descriptive representation  in the executive branch; and she has participated in policy  initiatives to strengthen an administrationʼs substantive  representation. These contributions have been  controversial, as might be predicted for a gender outsider,  but they have unquestionably made the First Lady a  representative of and to the president and, by extension,  the presidentʼs administration.},
      recid = {439001},
      pages = {1 online resource (xii, 252 p.) :},
      address = {College Station [Tex.] :},
      year = {2011},
}