Sorry for the provocative title, but to me, there's no other way to describe this amazing woman. My wife and I attended a luncheon in Minneapolis yesterday at which Ms. Obama was the speaker. It was an amazing experience. Details below the fold.....
Wow. Michelle was introduced by the amazing Mayor of Minneapolis (and, I hope, the next Governor of Minnesota), R.T. Rybak, and then by Terri Bonoff, newly announced candidate in MN-03. She began by talking about her childhood, and how her working-class father was able to provide for his family while holding down a working-class job. She went on to say that now, increasingly, that is not the case-- families need 2 earners, or 2 or more jobs, to make ends meet, and even that is getting harder.
She eventually moved to talking about her husband, and why he is the leader we need to move our country forward.
But the best part of her speech was the forcefulness with which she made clear that the success of Obama's candidacy, and later of his Presidency, is not all about him. It's about us. It's about whether WE are ready to elect a President like Obama. He is ready-- ready to lead, ready to bring us together, move us forward. Are we ready to elect someone who is like what we always say we want in a President? Someone who has integrity, the courage of his convictions, character, judgment, common sense? Are we ready to have a leader who tells us the truth? Are WE ready for him?
Later, in a brief Q&A, an audience member asked how the campaign would get back the excitement, the buzz, which surrounded Obama in the aftermath of his 2004 DNC speech. Michelle answered bluntly and not at all diplomatically: "hype" is not what we need and is not what we will get. It's about a bottom-up effort for change, not about media hype and buzz. "It's on us." She repeated this several times. The hype and the buzz and the "feel-good" effect that candidates can have is all ephemeral. It is not real. It is, she said, like fast food-- it is appealing in the moment, but leaves us unfulfilled.
"But everyone eats fast food," the original questioner retorted. "And everyone is overweight, people are getting diabetes, we have an obesity epidemic," Obama responded, shouting now (I'm paraphrasing throughout; I had no tape recorder, but this is pretty close to a quote). It is up to US to do the research, learn about the policy positions, and educate each other. It is up to us to put in the work to elect Barack Obama President, and then, she said, to continue the work to ensure that he can get done what needs to be done. The work does not end on January 20, 2009. It just enters a new phase.
Michelle Obama was inspiring, she was encouraging, she was admonitory. She made me want to redouble my efforts to elect her husband. She made me even surer that he is the best candidate, and even more confident in what kind of leader he would be. And I am thrilled at the prospect of his closest confidant, his most trusted advisor, his best sounding board, being a woman who is, to put it simply, a badass.