Jeri Kehn Thompson '88 on "Sense of Community" Among Candidate's Wives

December 1, 2007

December 1, 2007, Greencastle, Ind. - Jeri Kehn Thompson says she emerged from a recent forum with wives of other presidential candidates with a sense of "camaraderie." Thompson, the wife of Republican Fred Thompson and 1988 graduate of DePauw University, discusses her husband's presidential campaign and her role in it in an interview with NBC/National Journal's Adam Aigner-Treworgy.

Of the forum, which took place October 23 in California and was moderated by Maria Shriver, Jeri Thompson says, "I came away really imbued with a sense of community from them, from both sides. Elizabeth Edwards was the first woman who defended me when some folks were, I would say, mischaracterizing me, and I will forever be grateful to her for that. There's sort of a funny side to this and that's that what I didn't realize is some of these women have been in this 20, 25 years doing this with their husbands as governors, or definitely in the limelight. Frankly, I've been sort of the grassroots, sort of behind-the-scenes girl," adds Thompson, who majored in English literature at DePauw and worked as a media consultant and Republican political strategist in Washington.

"What I learned from these women is that they all participate at a great level in the campaigns in as much as they care about the issues as much as their husbands. And they care about their husbands' schedule and how the campaign is working and they have a lot to say about how it works. And if they didn't, wouldn't that be the story? If we didn't care about our husbands or didn't care that they were being overworked and underfed and over-whatever else you do on the campaign trail since I'm not there all the time. Wouldn't that be the story?"

Access the complete text at MSNBC.com.

Jeri Thompson was featured in the October 15 issue of People magazine. Details can be found in this previous story.

Back