Is Blame The Wife A New GOP Trend?

I must say when I wrote this aside in regards to the sudden collapse of the Newt Gingrich presidential campaign that I was on to something.
The aside is as follows:

Another tea leaf to swing through is that many are blaming the latest Mrs. Gingrich, Calista, and her insistence of being hands on in campaign operations.
Or is that hands off?
Same sources say that the insiders that bailed the Newt ship did not like the fact that the Gingrich's went on a Mediterranean cruise just after his announcement of running for president.
Yeah, when all else fails, blame the wife>

I realize that I am not alone in this thinking. That it is not cool to blame a candidate or potential candidate's wife, or husband, for decisions said people make.
In this piece by Matt Latimer, this is not really all that new a trend. But it is one that I find really stupid and bad.
Mr. Latimer goes deep into the archives of this "blame the wife". He goes all the way back to Ronald Reagan.
Yeah, you know when he was in his first term, wife Nancy was not lionized by the leftywhore media. She had the nerve, nerve I tell you, to want to update the White House china. Of course it was more a matter of timing rather than a bad idea. Mrs. Reagan wanted to do this in the middle of one of the worst recessions to that date. Unemployment was high and there was little if any economic hope. So, what did people do when then President Reagan's popularity suffered?
They blamed Nancy Reagan.
And it got worse when the whole astrology scandal came up during the Reagan second term.
Ehm, excuse me but Ronald Reagan was president, not Nancy. Thus, blaming her for things that went wrong or did not is stupid. And it takes away from a hallmark of Republican and conservative thinking.
Taking personal responsibility.
The latest "Blame the wife" is in reference to the Indiana governor, Mitch Daniels.
He decided to pass a run for the White House. It was his decision. And yes, it was based on not just what his wife, Cheri thought. It had to be based in part because of their own shall I say untidy marital history. For background, read Mr. Latimer's piece.
But those desperate for Gov. Daniels to enter the race seem to want to lay all blame at the feet of the wife.
Pssst! It is not all Cheri Daniels' fault.
At the end of the day it will be a candidate that has to take the credit for the good and blame for the bad. Not the wife or husband. Period.
Hmm, think of a battle between Congresswoman Michelle Bachmann and former Alaska governor Sarah Palin. Would these people dare to talk smack about their husbands?