If being the principal force behind the nation’s most popular and dynamic political powerhouse wasn't enough to command the attention of most Americans, the likelihood that come next winter Michelle Obama could be the first black woman to occupy the White House has made her one of the most fascinating figures in the media today. With her six-figure earning power, Ivy League intellect and key role in securing the Democratic bid for her husband, Illinois senator Barack Obama, in what will go down in history as one of the most exciting presidential races this nation has ever seen,—all eyes are on Michelle Obama.
Essence magazine listed her among “25 of the World’s Most Inspiring Women” and in July of 2007, Vanity Fair Magazine listed her among “10 of the World’s Best Dressed People.” She was also listed 58th of “The Harvard 100,” a list of the prior year’s most influential alumni in September of 2007.
Her skyrocketing popularity has evoked parallels to Jackie Kennedy, a notion made all the more pronounced with endorsements from Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg and Senator Ted Kennedy. But her outspokenness, growing media profile and vital importance in the Obama camp have made her a target.
Before Rev. Jeremiah Wright, political analysts and rivals looking for a possible crack in Obama's political armor thought they might have found it in his wife.
A statement most believe was directed towards Hillary Clinton’s campaign in a speech last summer, first got the attention of the nation's media, drawing fire.
"If you can't run your own house, you can't run the White House," Obama had said.
Some pundits called it an indirect criticism of Hillary Clinton. Obama’s husband would later say the words were not directed at Hillary while characterizing the fluff behind the incident as "completely fabricated."
But what was not so easily dismissed was the characterization of Michelle Obama as overly opinionated and overbearing that surfaced on the campaign trail.
Early in the campaign, analysts described her as sarcastic when recalling anecdotes about the Obama family life. In an interview with MSNBC, Michelle Obama said of her husband: “he has big ears … a funny name, too. He doesn’t put butter away. Has trouble making his bed. He’s not the next Messiah who’s going to fix it all. He is going to stumble and make mistakes you won’t agree with. In the end, he’s just a man.”
Some analysts contended that her jests at humbling her husband could become a liability. In a press account of her sarcasm, New York Times op-ed columnist Maureen Dowd said: “I wince a bit when Michelle Obama chides her husband as a mere mortal — comic routine that rests on the presumption that we see him as a god ... But it may not be smart politics to mock him in a way that turns him from the glam JFK into the mundane Gerald Ford, toasting his own English muffin. If all Senator Obama is peddling is the Camelot mystique, why debunk this mystique?”
And, as the press began to emphasize her sarcasm, which did not translate well in the print media, she appeared to tone it down.
But in February, Michelle Obama sparked yet another media firestorm when she told a Milwaukee, Wisconsin crowd that for the first time in her adult lifetime, she was really proud of her country, adding, "not just because Barack has done well, but because I think people are hungry for change.”
Conservatives jumped on the statement, attacking the Chicago-born lawyer and mother of two. A recent ad playing up the incident is being broadcast on the airwaves in Tennessee and the internet prompting the Illinois senator to admonish his opponents to lay off his wife.
“The GOP, should I be the nominee, can say whatever they want to say about me, or my track record," Obama fired back. “If they think that they’re going to try to make Michelle an issue in this campaign, they should be careful because that I find unacceptable, the notion that you start attacking my wife or my family. He called the strategy, “low class.”
Fact is, Michelle Obama has been the subject of curiosity, if not scrutiny, since her husband's meteoric rise to the forefront of the Democratic Party after bowing on the national stage in 2004 with his electric keynote speech at the national convention at Boston's Fleet Center.
Though for some, her outspoken nature might not fit the persona of the archetypal first lady, political analyst Kerman Maddox said he was among just many who find her traits to be refreshing.
“This is an appeal quality to many people because she comes across as real and genuine,” Maddox said in an interview last year. Some people prefer the candidates’ wives to gaze glowingly at their husbands and for them to be working hard to be politically correct.”
"Michelle Obama doesn't appear to fit that stereotype and I think it resonates with many women voters. In fact, I'm not sure the media or the public has figured how to handle a strong, highly intelligent, well-educated, opinionated African American woman like Michelle Obama?"
Amidst the campaign frenzy, Obama, who stands 5'11", has also been described as fascinating, straight-talking, and charming;—a woman who holds down the home front, raising two daughters with a trademark cool and collected persona.
Indeed, she has found her biggest connection to voters to be in the more simple things of life: how she was reared, her principles, the love of family and how she is raising her children.
"As a parent I marvel at the fact that my father---a blue collar worker who also had multiple sclerosis and could not walk without the use of a cane, was not just able to raise us and keep a roof over our heads,” she has said, “but to send two kids at the same time to Princeton University.”
Born Michelle LaVaughn Robinson on January 17, 1964, she came from humble beginnings. Her father, Frasier Robinson, was a city water plant employee and her mother, Marian Robinson, was a Spiegel’s catalog secretary. The Robinson's had two children, Craig, who is 16 months older than Michelle, and Michelle. They lived in a one-bedroom apartment where the children slept in the living room, which was sectioned off by a patrician to form their bedroom.
Education was paramount in the Robinson home. Both children skipped the second grade and attended Whitney Young High School, a magnet school that boasts such alum as NASA Astronaut Joan Higginbotham, and NFL Superbowl Champ, Russell Maryland.
After high school, Obama and her brother both attended Princeton University. Craig Robinson is currently the Oregon State University Beaver’s Men’s basketball coach.
Although her position has been scaled down so she can assist with the presidential campaign, Obama is employed as vice president for the Community and External Affairs at the University of Chicago Hospitals, where in 2006, she took home a whopping $273, 618 (over $100,000 more than what her husband made as senator of Illinois) according to federal income tax returns.
Today, with the Secret Service for protection, cameras documenting their every move, and a nanny to help with the children, Michelle Obama lives a world quite different than what she probably ever imagined.
Her senior year thesis at Princeton University, entitled, “Princeton-Educated Blacks and the Black Community,” revealed the mind of a young black woman who believed she would always stand on the sidelines of American society because of the color of her skin.
“My experiences at Princeton have made me far more aware of my 'blackness' than ever before," the future Mrs. Obama wrote in her thesis introduction. "I have found that at Princeton, no matter how liberal and open-minded some of my white professors and classmates try to be toward me, I sometimes feel like a visitor on campus; as if I really don't belong. Regardless of the circumstances under which I interact with whites at Princeton, it often seems as if, to them, I will always be black first and a student second."
Written in 1985, Obama goes on to say that the path she chose by attending Princeton would likely lead to “ further integration and/or assimilation into a white cultural and social structure that will only allow me to remain on the periphery of society; never becoming a full participant.” (The 96-page thesis has been temporarily pulled from the University archives by librarians who were swamped with requests for a copy).
Obama—who went on to do post-graduate studies and secure a Juris Doctor degree from Harvard—met her future husband after returning home to Chicago and landing a job at the prestigious corporate law firm, Sidley Austin.
Assigned to mentor a summer intern by the name of Barack Obama (also a Harvard Law School graduate), she often candidly recalls how she initially dreaded the assignment.
“I read his bio and I thought, wow, this guy is black and he grew up in Hawaii, so I lowered my expectations because I thought any black guy that spent his formative years on an Island had to be crazy,” she recounts. “But I was wrong. I did like many people do and based my assumptions on a piece of paper. I thought there wasn’t anything I could possibly have in common with this guy.”
Their relationship started with a business lunch and then a community organization meeting. The couple's first date was to the Spike Lee movie, “Do The Right Thing,” and they were married in October 1992, by the now controversial, Reverend Jeremiah Wright.
When asked about what made her fall in love with the presidential hopeful, she replied to reporters, "for the same reason many other people respect him: his connection with people."
Over the years, Obama would become a mother of two daughters, Malia Ann (born 1998) and Natasha (known as Sasha) (born 2001), and go from the corporate world to the public sector in a slew of prestigious positions, including assistant to the Mayor of Chicago, and Assistant Commissioner of Planning and Development.
In 1993, she became Executive Director for the Chicago office of Public Allies, a non-profit organization that encourages young people to work on social issues in nonprofit groups and government agencies, and at one time, she sat on the board of TreeHouse Foods, Inc., a major Wal-Mart supplier. She has since cut ties with them after her husband made comments critical of Wal-Mart at an AFL-CIO forum. Obama also serves on the board of directors of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs.
But for all she has accomplished, her biggest mission just might stand before her in rewriting history as America's next First Lady —the first black women to call the White House home. And she is more than doing her part.
In May 2007, three months after her husband declared his candidacy, she reduced her professional responsibilities by eighty percent to become an active participant in the campaign.
“The way I look at it is, we’re running for president of the United States. Me, Barack, Sasha, Malia, my mom, my brother, his sisters—we’re all running,” she said in an interview with Vanity Fair.
Initially, she had limited involvement in the campaign, traveling to political events only two days a week, but by early February 2008, she had employed an all-female staff of aides, attended thirty-three campaign events in eight days, and stated on more than one occasion that she is Barack’s closest political advisor, keeping him level headed.
The political stump speeches for her husband's presidential campaign at various locations throughout the United States more than reveal her own audacity of hope. The Chicago Sun-Times wrote about one speech of hers in Iowa, stating "Michelle was a firebrand, expressing a determined passion for her husband's campaign, talking straight from the heart with eloquence and intelligence."
But with the role has come the spotlight, complete with appearances on countless talk shows and news programs including Good Morning America and Larry King Live, and the political attacks that have come to define the hard-fought campaign.
Nothing, however, has seemed to derail Obama’s popularity with voters as the campaign's fundraising soared to record levels making him the most bankable candidate—Republican or Democrat— in the race.
For that, Michelle Obama is more than thankful as she knows all too well that she is standing on the brink of being the right hand to the most powerful man in the world, should Obama win this November.
Win or lose, the 44-year old senator's wife is pleased with what they've been able to accomplish, stating what she hopes the campaign has portrayed.
“As we have all said in the Black community, we don’t see all of who we are in the media," Obama has said. "We see snippets of our community and distortions of our community so the world has this perspective that somehow Barack and Michelle Obama, are different, and unique, and we’re not-- you just haven’t seen us before.”
Despite the likelihood that her husband will be the Democratic nominee, Obama steers clear of discussing what she will do as First Lady, only recently suggesting that she would take on women's and family issues.
She is certain, however, of this: “When people ask, ‘what kind of First Lady will you be?’—I’m going to try, in all this, to be honest, hopefully funny, and open, and share important parts of me with people, hopefully in a way that will help them think about their lives and avoid the mistakes we may have made in our lifetime. What you see on the trail is probably who I will be as First Lady, because that’s really who I am.”
“I am desperate for change—now,” she says, “not in 8 years or 12 years, but right now. We don’t have time to wait. We need big change—not just the shifting of power among insiders. We need to change the game, because the game is broken. When I think about the country I want to give my children, it’s not the world we have now."
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