"Watching her, I started to feel oddly sorry for her husband's opponent"

Yes I am supporting Barack Obama.  So it is not surprising that I find things of interest about which to write.  In this offering I will share yet another endorsement, that of the Austin-American Statesman.  But I will also talk about the most effective speaker I have seen this year.    The name is Obama, but it is not Barack.   It is Michelle, and now I know why her husband calls her "the Closer."

Either of these topics could well justify its own diary, but I am limited to one a day, and wanted to be sure both topics got some attention.  And I see some connection.

If interested in either subject, or perhaps even in what additional thoughts I might share, please keep reading.  If not, have a nice day.
From the endorsement, entitled "Time is right for his unifying vision: Yes, Obama can" and published online yesterday, let me offer the following:

Obama presents a view of governing that is inclusive and relies on Americans to work with their government to solve sobering problems at home and abroad. Obama's familiar refrain on the campaign trail is, "Yes, we can."

By contrast, Clinton promotes a self-centered governing style that drives home what she would do as president. She asks little of Americans and discourages opposing views. Clinton has moved from her position as first lady that it "takes a village" to solve problems to it takes only Hillary (and maybe Bill).

Those contrasts offer a clear choice: Barack Obama. His optimism, unifying vision and ability to inspire are the kind of healing balm the country needs at this moment in history.

We also believe that Obama is more electable than Clinton, who would no doubt energize dispirited Republican voters. That makes Obama a stronger nominee for the Democrats going into November.

He has articulated a vision that would allow the legs of government to again move fluidly in a natural motion that takes the country forward.

Like a veteran slugger on deck, Hillary Clinton has campaigned principally on the logic that it is her turn at bat. Democrats must resist the instinct to select the next in line and grab instead the best hitter on the bench. That is Barack Obama.

Of course there is more in the editorial than what I have quoted above.  But even these snippets offer some key ideas: Obama's optimism, that he would be  stronger general election candidate particularly because of the deep-seated opposition to Clinton, Clinton's "self-centered governing style" and that Obama is better prepared to move the country forward.   They also write about the enthusiasm he generates among young people, something very clear from the three big rallies yesterday in Boise, Minneapolis and St. Louis.  In one day over 50,000 people in three cities in three states.  Many  more people in Boise than participated in the last round of Democratic caucuses in Idaho.  

It was impressive to watch him yesterday, either on tv or via live feed.   At one point I was watching dueling Obamas, as CNN had a live feed from Minneapolis at the same time C-Span was putting forth Michelle's speech in Wilmington on Thursday.  And that blew people away.  

Consider for example Jean Marbella's Baltimore Sun column on Friday, entitled Michelle Obama finds ways to hearts  It begins:  

For all that Michelle Obama brings to the table -- and, from her high-powered resume to her easy, confident style, it's considerable -- what perhaps is most attractive is what she arrives without.

Baggage.

You know, that weighty, burdensome and ultimately exhausting public spectacle that has been the Clinton marriage. Watching Michelle Obama yesterday at a campaign event in Delaware, I kept thinking, please, please, please, let us never know much more than the fact that you love and admire your husband.

Or consider this snip from the middle of the column:

Hundreds packed into a Victorian-era opera house in Wilmington for Michelle Obama's noontime speech -- and quickly piled into the palm of her hand.

They don't call her "the closer" for nothing.

"She blew me away," one audience member, the previously undecided Betsy Cromartie, 50, told me afterward. "He just got my vote."

Cromartie had tears in her eyes by the end of the speech, and said she felt moved by how Michelle Obama, echoing her husband, called for an end to cynicism in politics.

Watching her, I started to feel oddly sorry for her husband's opponent.

For a real change in status quo, how about a first-spouse debate, Michelle versus Bill. I'd pay to watch that one.

She spoke not only of how Barack was not supposed to be here, but how she was not - a child of the South Side of Chicago, who went to Princeton when people said she couldn't, who graduated with departmental honors, and then overcame more skepticism to go to Harvard Law.   She talked about how decidcated - I would say "ferocious" - she was on behalf of her little girls, and how if she was that way she knows how the other mothers would be on behalf of their children, with his aspirations and broad dreams.  As Marbella notes,

Tall and attractive, serious and warm, Michelle Obama spoke of her husband's aspirations, but also those of ordinary people -- for good schools, decent jobs and benefits, secure retirements. She deftly managed to highlight differences between her husband and Hillary Clinton without making them seem like attacks.

I have read a great deal of additional coverage of the event in Wilmington, and it is similar. People who were there were simply blown away.  It was not just the supporters, or people who came out of curiousity and left committed to Barack. It was also the political reporters who were impressed, as much as was Marbella.

The final three Democratic candidates are all lawyers, each married to a lawyer.   We have experienced 6 very gifted and skilled people, each of whom is articulate and persuasive.  I have met with Elizabeth Edwards, and seen remarks by all of the others.  Yesterday, watching the replay from Wilmington, was the first time I really experienced Michelle Obama.  She is persuasive, she draws people to her and to her vision.   She is not advocating on her own behalf, but on behalf of something larger even than her husband's candidacy.  She makes it, as does he, not about him or them, but about us.

It has been my contention for a number of years that many Americans, especially young people, are eager to be challenged, hungry for someone to ask them to do something beyond themselves.  It is clear this is part of the appeal of Barack Obama, whose articulation of what WE need to do does resonate with the same appeal of Kennedy's Ask Not remarks at his inauguration.  

Michelle Obama said in Wilmington that one way she measured a person is what they did before they decided to be famous.  She noted that her husband, as president of the Law Review, could easily have taken the normal path, perhaps a clerkship at SCOTUS.  But he returned to Chicago, taught Constitutional law, worked for a small civil rights law firm.  She made the case that it is not the aspirations of Barack Obama that matter, but that he serves as a vehicle for us to express our aspirations of a better America.

Michell Obama is dedicated to her two daughters.  Even with the intensity of the campaign she remains grounded, knowing her most important role is that of their mother, and makes sure not to be away from them for more than a couple of days at a time.  And it is clear that she keeps her husband similarly grounded - I remember that he left the campaign trail to fly home to take her out to dinner on her birthday.  Her commitment to her children means she is not on the trail as much as Hillary Clinton's spouse.  I have to wonder how different the race might be had she been out more, and had the political press given her even 1/3 of the coverage that Bill receives as the former president.  She is that effective.   She truly is the closer, as her husband calls her.

Today she will appear in California, in a rally with Oprah Winfrey.  MS Winfrey may be the bigname draw, but the real attraction, what people will remember, is the powerful impact Michelle Obama has.  

I have no idea what the results of Tuesday's contests will be.  But assuming that no one scores a knockout, the campaign will continue.   And the longer the campaign endures, the more people will get to experience the Obamas, both Barack and Michelle.  And based on what I saw yesterday, from both of them, that is very much to their advantage.  

And the words of Jean Marbella about Michelle are especially worth remembering:  Watching her, I started to feel oddly sorry for her husband's opponent.

Peace.

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