Political Life Can Weigh On Families -- Rep. Rick White, Wife Separating; Image As Family Man May Suffer

MARRIAGE, FAMILY and politics don't always mix well. Though a politician ideally wants to be portrayed as having a close, loving family, the heavy demands of the job - from legislating to long-distance commuting - can take a huge toll. ----------------------------------------------------------------- WASHINGTON - One of the most memorable images from last year's 1st Congressional District campaign was a television commercial with Rep. Rick White reading to his son as the young boy sat on White's lap.

"I'm Rick White, and this is my son Richard," said the Bainbridge Island Republican, wearing his trademark plaid shirt. "He's 5, and he's already responsible for $180,000 of the national debt."

The ad painted a compelling picture that evoked fatherhood and family values without ever uttering the words.

That image - reminiscent of 1994 ads showing him with his wife, Vikki Kennedy White, and their four children - helped re-elect White to Congress. So when he announced last month that he and his wife were separating, the news threatened to shatter White's carefully crafted image as a family man who serves as a citizen legislator.

White has revealed few details about the separation and declined to be interviewed for this story.

But Vikki White said his job placed an extraordinary stress on their relationship that neither of them expected. While politics did not cause their separation, she said, her husband's political career

certainly made their marriage more difficult to maintain.

"The job requires that he commute across the country, work on weekends after working 60 hours a week at the office, maintain two residences and be the perfect husband and father all at the same time," Vikki White said. "No other career is this demanding - or more important.

"It's no wonder that marriages in politics are strained at times."

Those personal strains are particularly acute for members of Congress from the West Coast, who try to maintain lives in two distant - and different - worlds.

The impact on families doesn't begin when a politician takes office. It begins when the candidate enters a race, said Brett Bader, a Bellevue-based GOP political consultant.

"It is a very, very tough business on people," Bader said, "because of the rigors of the campaign, the excruciating negativity, the time constraints on family."

Toughest of all, Bader said, is the potential effect on children: "You have no idea what it is like to an 8-year-old kid to see your father bombarded in the newspapers."

Mike Kreidler, who held Washington's 9th District House seat from 1992 to 1994, first considered running for Congress in 1988. He decided against it after talking to his family.

"I remember going to my son, who was in junior high at the time, and telling him about the possibility and what it would mean," Kreidler said. "He ran downstairs, cried himself to sleep and never ate dinner. It left an impression on me, and I decided it wasn't worth it. I knew the commitment that was involved, and family life meant more to me. When I did run, they were older."

When Patty Murray ran for the U.S. Senate five years ago, her daughter, Sara, was 12. Sara did not exactly enjoy the campaign or the instant celebrity it brought. She became estranged from some friends. She overheard strangers at school call her a snob. She faced classmates who volunteered criticism of her mother's campaign.

In an essay published this month in her high school newspaper, Sara Murray said she resented her mother's campaign at the time but now regrets those feelings.

"Why should I support someone who was dragging me through hell so she could have a job?" Sara wrote of her thoughts at the time. "No one ever cared to answer this trivial question except to say, `She needs to do it so other women can.' This didn't answer my question. Who was my mother to suddenly be a spokesperson for the entire female sex?"

After the election, life improved for Sara when the Murrays moved their primary residence to Washington, D.C. They stayed for three years before returning to Seattle. The Murrays said both decisions were right for them at the time.

Deciding where the family lives is difficult, particularly for West Coast members of Congress. White and his wife decided she would stay with the children on Bainbridge Island rather than relocate the family to Washington. He rented a Capitol Hill townhouse that could accommodate two sleeper sofas for the family's visits. The family visited in 1995 for a few weeks in the summer.

In an interview during his first term, White expressed concern about how his new job would affect his family.

"We know it's going to be hard on our family," White said at the time. "We knew that going in, and we're going to work hard to make it work."

Sara Smith, wife of newly elected Rep. Adam Smith, D-Kent, stays with him in Washington, D.C., and they travel together back and forth to Seattle. If they have children while Smith is still in Congress, she said, the children would attend school in South King County.

"People expect you to be back in the district," Sara Smith said. "And we want to be back in the district. We want to raise our children with Pacific Northwest values. And our family is out there. I think that makes it better for us."

Members of Congress from Washington state often rush to catch United Airlines Flight 171 from Dulles International Airport to Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. It leaves at 5:35 p.m. and arrives 5 1/2 hours later.

The commute can wear out politicians who often face a packed schedule on the West Coast, then return a few days later on an overnight flight.

Former Gov. Mike Lowry said that after his first term in Congress, his wife Mary and their daughter moved back to the state to be closer to family and friends.

The choice was right, he said, but grueling too. In 1988, in the midst of an ill-fated U.S. Senate contest, Lowry collapsed after his red-eye flight made a stop at O'Hare International Airport in Chicago. He had a bleeding ulcer and said he ignored the symptoms.

Capitol Hill staffer Leslie Turner saw the effect on her former boss, Kreidler, who flew home every weekend to be with his family.

"I lovingly say that it added 10 years to his appearance," Turner said. "He had a cold for six months. He took those stupid red-eyes all the time, which made it worse. He thought it was important. It was miraculous that he stuck to it."

White traveled back to the state 21 times his first year in Congress. But the 43-year-old said the travel did not cause his separation, and he is not considering giving up his seat for his family.

"It's too easy to blame personal problems on the job," White told statewide political columnist Adele Ferguson. "The best thing I could do for my community and my party is to hold on to my seat. There is no way I would give the seat back, even though it was not a slam-dunk keeping it. This seat is a battleground, and there is no way I would give it back."

There are political implications to divorce, though not necessarily lost elections. Rep. Jim McDermott, D-Seattle, was divorced during his first term and won re-election. Rep. Jennifer Dunn, R-Bellevue, is divorced and has won easily.

But both represent highly partisan, "safe" seats, and Dunn's divorce was final long before she ran for office.

Studies show that married politicians do better than single ones, said James Moore, professor of political science at the University of Portland and a longtime scholar of Northwest politics.

Marital status was a subtext to White's 1994 victory over incumbent Democrat Maria Cantwell. White's family was highly visible in the campaign advertising and events; his campaign noted that Cantwell was single and didn't have family in the district.

In an interview for the reference book "Politics in America," White said that because government cannot solve all problems, elected officials should lead by example, including living clean lives and stressing family values. When his four children were not in school, the profile noted, White took one of them on the campaign trail every day so he would not lose time with them.

Could White's separation become an issue in 1998 election?

"There is no way around it," said Moore. "It will be upfront, or it will be the drumbeat that is going on behind the scenes with someone like White."