The McCain and Obama wives are discreetly stylish, appealingly pretty and, not by accident, conspicuously nonthreatening. Michelle might love a nice set of pearls as much as the next woman, but the wholesome image they represent is probably part of the reason she's been seen sporting them all over the country. Consultants, campaign advisers, focus groups hover in the background—it's not just the husbands who have hand-tailored images. Sartorial strategy factors into the bigger political picture, and you can be sure there is someone considering the broader implications of hemlines, color palettes and cleavage.

Clinton's success in the primaries sparked some celebratory rhetoric about barriers being broken and glass ceilings shattered, and without a doubt, her candidacy has raised the bar of possibility for American women. But missing from this conversation is an acknowledgement of the way that America's complicated relationship to its own sexuality influences the standards by which women in public life are judged. We sneer at the French and their "liberated" ways, but they make allowances for the humanity of their political figures instead of holding them up to a desexualized standard of perfection that often yields disappointment, or, alternately, deception. In her latest publicity bombshell, Bruni-Sarkozy poses with a catlike smile on the cover of this month's Vanity Fair, and inside, she stands defiant in a blood-red gown that billows in the wind, on the roof of the Élysée Palace, in Paris. In the accompanying interview, it is clear she is not going to apologize for being herself. Simon Doonan, the creative director of Barneys New York and author of "Eccentric Glamour," sums up the difference between the two countries' conceptions of political figures: "America still has that Puritan thing going on: self-denial is a prerequisite for public service." Just try telling that to Carla.

© 2008