"She would have a very difficult time," [Kati Marton] recalls answering, "because the role is cherished by the American people, and they have expectations" for the president's wife. After the talk last fall, the woman approached Marton and extended her hand. "I'm Mrs. Howard Dean," she said, and she went on to explain that her daughter-in- law, Judith Steinberg, was determined to not sacrifice her own life and career to her husband's presidential bid.

If Dean were to become president, Steinberg would move to the White House and work outside it, finding a way to practice medicine in Washington, the candidate vowed. "Judy would break the mold," said Dean, a physician himself.

Initially, Kati Marton told Howard Dean's mother at the Maidstone Club that the American people aren't ready for a new archetype of first lady. "Look at what happened to [Hillary Rodham Clinton]," Marton warned, whose book, "Hidden Power," argues that presidential marriages shaped the nation's history. "She tried to make it more operational, and it's reverted to being more traditional."