Four years ago, the Slovenian former supermodel Melania Trump stood in a belted white dress that sang of Hamptons summer, sleek pumps on her feet and a pale pink clutch in her manicured grip. She squinted. She smoldered. But she was neither on runway nor red carpet. Melania Trump, the longtime pin-up and cover girl, was posing outside an Applebee’s in Times Square. She was there to bear witness to the friendship between the two people beside her: her husband, Donald Trump, and the former Alaska governor Sarah Palin.
A year later, the Trumps hosted another Capitol Hill hopeful in their Gotham playground: they threw a 63rd birthday bash for Ann Romney that doubled as a campaign fundraiser for Ann’s husband, Mitt, the former governor of Massachusetts. Again, an opportunity for Donald to trumpet his friendship with a Republican politician; again an opportunity for Melania to pose. This time she chose hot pink and a forced smile. She stood beside Ann, before the gilded columnary of Trump Tower, showing off a very special birthday cake: dainty flowers, green pastures, three odd tree stumps, and a sugary figurine of Ann Romney on a horse that could only have been Rafalca.
