Published: May 21, 2007 03:21 pm      

KETTER: Romney handles tough sex question

Mitt Romney’s squeaky-clean image got a surprise test from legendary CBS inquisitor Mike Wallace recently but Romney’s response was so direct and disarming that little came of it.

Wallace, interviewing the former Massachusetts governor on “60 Minutes,” asked almost nonchalantly if Romney had sex with his wife, Ann, before their marriage in 1969.

“No, I’m sorry. We don’t get into those things,” replied Romney, smiling and appearing to laugh off the question. “The answer is no.”

Wallace, who has been getting under the skin of presidential candidates for 50 years, quickly dropped the subject, moving on to talk about Romney’s rise to prominence in the business world and his wife’s encounter with multiple sclerosis, a nervous-system disease she said is in remission.

Fallout from the brief exchange on premarital sex has been scant, with the mainstream press hardly mentioning it or commenting on the propriety of Wallace broaching the subject.

A few conservative commentators and bloggers, however, saw it as another attempt by the liberal media to ambush a presidential aspirant with an irreverent character question. They described the inquiry as a gratuitous cheap shot.

But was it?

Wallace didn’t simply blurt out the question. It came after Romney’s explanation he had known his wife since they were high school sweethearts and feared he might lose her to another man while he was completing his two-year Mormon missionary service in France and she attended Brigham Young University in Utah.

“You get all these Mormons out there with strict prohibition against premarital sex,” said Romney. “They’re young and they’re attractive, the hormones work very well and people decide it’s time to get married.”

“Did you have premarital sex with Ann?” Wallace asked softly, in a scene where she was sitting nearby, listening to the question off camera.

Romney didn’t seem to mind the question and he didn’t hesitate in his emphatically “no” answer.

If the question startled you, keep in mind that few, if any, character questions are considered off-limits during a presidential campaign. Candidates have been pressed in public on personal matters, including sexual behavior, since the 19th century, when Democrat Grover Cleveland was asked if he had fathered a child out of wedlock.

Cleveland, a bachelor, acknowledged he had, vowed to support the boy and went on to win the presidency in 1884 despite the Republican campaign slogan, “Ma, Ma, Where’s my Pa?”

A slogan, by the way, that victorious Democrats added to with this line: “Gone to the White House, ha, ha, ha!”

Cleveland said he was glad he had told the truth; that it helped fortify his straightforward standing with voters, and that it was not disrespectful of reporters to ask about the paternity of the child.

The Wallace question was hardly stuff for a slogan. Even if Romney had answered in the affirmative.

It was unexpected, granted. But it was also a softball. The longtime CBS reporter appeared to spontaneously come up with it in an effort to show the human side of Romney — not an easy thing to do given his natural politeness and guarded determination.

That was not the case in 1976, when Democrat Jimmy Carter was running for president, and reporters for Playboy magazine got him to admit that he was human and had lusted after a lot of women in his heart, though had not acted out his desires. The candid admission — which Carter said he did not expect to see in print — came near the end of the campaign and nearly sank his presidential bid.

Whether Mitt Romney’s quick and unequivocal response to Mike Wallace’s premarital sex query will help propel him to the Republican nomination and the White House remains to be seen. But neither the question nor the answer hurt his chances.

William B. Ketter is vice president for news for Community Newspaper Holdings Inc.