Barack's Rock - the Newsweek Cover Story

Michelle Obama is on the cover of the new Newsweek.  The accompanying article, entitled Barack's Rock begins with a featured snippet that read

She's the one who keeps him real, the one who makes sure running for leader of the free world doesn't go to his head. Michelle's story.

As anyone who read this diary knows, I have been incredibly impressed by Michelle Obama.  And reading the article did nothing to lower my opinion of her.  I believe the way she is featured now will be a strong positive for the Obama campaign.

So come along as I explore the article a bit.  Although if you want, you can ignore what I am writing and simply go read the article - it is now online, which is why I could provide a link.
The article is written by Richard Wolffe, a familiar face to those of us who regularly watch Keith Olbermann, and principal White House reporter for Newsweek.  His opening paragraph immediately lets us know how much she has in common with her husband, but also why she is greatly respected for herself:

Michelle Obama was never much interested in calling attention to herself. As an undergrad at Princeton in the 1980s, she was interested in social change, but didn't run for student government. Instead, she spent her free time running a literacy program for kids from the local neighborhoods. At Harvard Law, she took part in demonstrations demanding more minority students and professors. Yet unlike another more prominent Harvard Law student who would later take up the cause, she was not one to hold forth with high-flown oratory about the need for diversity. "When [Barack Obama] spoke, people got quiet and listened," recalls Prof. Randall Kennedy. "Michelle had a more modest, quieter, lower profile." Barack won election as president of the Law Review. Michelle put her energy into a less glamorous pursuit: recruiting black undergrads to Harvard Law from other schools. For her, politics wasn't so much about being inspirational as it was being practical-about getting something specific done, says Charles Ogletree, one of her professors. "She was not trying to get ahead."

Obama notes that she was never involved in her husband's previous campaigns, but as Wolffe writes

She wants to change the world, but she also wants to win this thing now that they're so deeply invested. If his loftiness can set him apart from the crowd, her bluntness draws them in.

Michelle rightly has concerns about her husband's safety, and thus is grateful for the Secret Service protection.  And before the decision was finally made, she was very involved in the discussion with staff about whether he should run. There were concerns about the family.  She recognized the need to run while her husband was still fresh, was concerned about Washington sucking the idealism out of him.  While she is motivated by politics and policy, she has no desire to run for office herself:

When a reporter recently joked that she could run for Barack's Senate seat if he were elected president, Michelle made a face of mock disgust. "Ugh," she grimaced. "No, thank you."

And I think Wolffe grasps something very important in this paragraph:

Part of Michelle Obama's appeal-she routinely draws audiences of 1,000-plus supporters even when she's campaigning on her own-is that she comes across as so normal despite the withering glare of a national campaign. As a political spouse, she is somewhat unusual. She isn't the traditional Stepford booster, smiling vacantly at her husband and sticking to a script of carefully vetted blandishments. Nor is she a surrogate campaign manager, ordering the staff around and micromanaging the candidate's every move. She travels the country giving speeches and attending events (her mother watches the kids when she's on the road), but resists staying away for more than one night at a stretch. When the couple catch up several times a day on the phone, the talk is more likely to be about their daughters than the latest poll projections. Michelle has made it her job to ensure that Barack, who now lives full time inside the surreal campaign bubble of adoring crowds and constant attention, doesn't himself lose sight of what's normal.

That is a huge part of Michelle's appeal.  And is often the case, people can look at a spouse and that helps them make a judgment about the candidate.   Michelle is obviously brilliant and capable.  That she is married to Barack is a validation of him as a person who is grounded that reinforces his own appeal.

And it is something those on the campaign experience, that groundedness.  After the loss in NH,

It was Michelle who delivered the pep talk to the candidate's dispirited aides waiting anxiously outside the couple's hotel suite. She cautioned them against listening to the pundits and polls: "We need to send a message to all our supporters to not take a single thing for granted."

There is extensive material on her background, her family life her attending Princeton, which she notes was as a legacy because her older brother Graig had been a scholar athlete (basketball - and he is now head coach at Brown) at the University, although she earned her admission to Harvard Law on her record as an undergraduate.  

She met Obama when assigned in 1989 to mentor a young summer associate.  

Michelle was unimpressed by the office gossip about the hotshot Harvard Law student, a biracial intern from Hawaii whom she dismissed as "a black guy who can talk straight." But she was disarmed by his confidence. He walked up to her one day and said, "I think we should go out on a date." She resisted, thinking it was inappropriate. She dropped her guard after he asked her to go to one of his community-organizing sessions in a church basement, where he delivered a stemwinding speech about closing the gap between what he called "the world as it is, and the world as it should be."

She was smitten. "I was, like, 'This guy is different'," she says. " 'He is really different, in addition to being nice and funny and cute and all that. He's got a seriousness and a commitment that you don't see every day'." She recalls thinking, " 'Well, you know, I'd like to be married to somebody who felt that deeply about things'." At this, she paused for a second. "Maybe I didn't say 'marry.' Scratch that part. It took him a little while." Each of them offered the other something they had lacked growing up-for her, a free-thinking outlook, for him, a sense of stability.

The article is long.  It is rich.  The picture one draws of Michelle - and hence of Barack - is of people who have not lost their roots, whose concern for others comes both from their own life experiences and their hopes for their little girls.  

I have probably already quoted enough.  Let me offer just a few additional thoughts of my own.

Part of what was appealing about Bill Clinton in 1992 is that people felt he understood them.  He was able to persuade people that he felt their pain, he knew the price of a gallon of milk, and for all the gibes about being governor of a small (might we say "insignificant"?) state, the smallness of that state meant that he had not been separated from the lives of the ordinary people whose governor he was.  For better or worse, after 15 years in Washington, between his presidency and her Senate tenure, it is hard for Sen. Clinton to offer the same connection.  Obama, even though he (and Michelle) now travel with protection that serves as a partial barrier to interaction with ordinary people, is still close enough to his roots that people tend to believe that he understands them.  His wife certainly reinforces that, and people are amazed to learn that he has not moved his family to Washington - yet.  That keeps his daughters in a more rooted and stable environment.  

Michelle Obama tries to never spend more than one night away from her girls.  Periodically her husband comes home off the trail as well, as he did on Valentine's Day.  

It is my sense that the more people experience Michelle Obama the more they are going to be favorably inclined towards her husband.  I have seen it watching crowd reactions to speeches in Wilmington DE and Los Angeles, and in the press coverage I have read.  I encounter it when I watch talking heads who are blown away by her, even people strongly supporting others, whether Asa Hutchinson who supported Huckabee or Paul Begala who is a strong Clinton supporter.

Regardless of whom you support, do yourself a favor.  Go online now, and take the time to read Richard Wolffe's article.   You really need to get to know this woman.

Peace.

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