I think the president is a rather feminine role to play. Constantly listening & responding to “the people.” Hitler said that the people were a woman to be dominated but I think in America this isn’t how we like to think. The people are the boss!

So Nixon was the wife of the people, and the rule might be that one’s private life has to reverse or somehow balance one’s public life. So he needed to be the husband. Except he was a husband to a wife, Pat, who was too stagey and put-together to deal with his messiness. A better fit for his private life was a macho Cuban guy with a gay side—who functioned as a wife.