Michelle Obama’s speech on the opening night of the Democratic convention was a seminal moment in her time as first lady, but it was not the first time the wife of the first black president of the United States proved why she is such an asset to him.
Mrs. Obama is in many respects the idyllic modern first lady — smart and accomplished in her own right (before he became a United States Senator, Michelle made more money than her husband), but with an easy glamor that pops off the small screen. (I’m sure news anchors across America never thought they’d be wearing sleeveless, but thanks to Michelle, it’s a fashion staple for women of all ages.)
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For black women in particular, Mrs. Obama is an object of particular pride; someone you never dreamed you’d see living in the White House, but who makes it look so effortless, you wonder why it took so long. Still, her fundamental appeal goes well beyond race. As one approving viewer stated on Twitter after the speech: “I want to go hang out with the Obama’s [sic] at their house and play Scrabble!”
And therein lies Michelle Obama’s secret: that while filling the ceremonial role of first lady, and the confidante of the nation’s commander in chief, she manages to also be the prototypical woman next door. No matter what the age, race or political affect of the listener, hearing Michelle Obama is like listening to a sister, a friend, a coworker, or a fellow mom at the PTA. She just sounds like someone you know.
When she says that before Barack Obama ran for president, “while I believed deeply in my husband’s vision for this country…and I was certain he would make an extraordinary President…like any mother, I was worried about what it would mean for our girls if he got that chance,” you empathize with the Obamas’ sense of awe at the undertaking they took together in 2008. As more than one person sitting near me in the arena as she gave her speech Tuesday night said: “I still get goosebumps thinking that someone so much like me is in the White House.”
Because she is both extraordinary and accessible, Michelle Obama is in many ways to the White House what Princess Diana was to the House of Windsor. The hoola-hooping with kids for her “Let’s Move” initiative; the appearances on Nickelodeon; her touching outreach to military families along with Jill Biden, wife of Vice President Joe Biden; the gardening and her insistence that Sasha and Malia Obama make their own beds — and of course, the hugging, which has become Mrs. Obama’s signature — all make her very literally the “people’s first lady.”
Even those who dislike President Obama and his policies often point to the first family as personally admirable. When Michelle Obama spoke Tuesday night of her early days with her husband, when they were “so in love, but so broke,” most Americans can relate.
When she spoke of Barack Obama’s family being just like her own, not in terms of ethnic blend but in terms of their values and beliefs, she pointed to a fundamental aspect of the American experience: the way people from all sorts of backgrounds find a commonality in being American.
When she talked about her dad, who had multiple sclerosis but struggled every day to stand up in front of the mirror and shave, and to put on his uniform, so that he wouldn’t miss a day of his job as a pump operator at a Chicago water plant; or Obama’s grandmother working as a bank secretary, but hitting a glass ceiling simply because she was a woman, the images are instantly recognizable to most people, no matter what their politics.
“I think she depoliticized the political season,” said Marlon Hill, who watched the speech from the floor of the arena as a Florida delegate. “She returned us to the everyday values Americans believe in.”
In some ways, though, the speech was very much a work of politics.
In it, Michelle Obama managed to contrast her and the president’s humble roots and prototypical American love story with the aristocratic courtship of the Romneys at an exclusive Massachusetts boarding school, without ever mentioning them by name. Her story of student loans and parents who sometimes had to take out loans to pay their share of her and her brother’s tuition, were a subtle rebuke to Mitt Romney’s admonition to struggling students to just “ask your parents for a loan.”
When she talked about the president believing that “when you’ve worked hard, and done well, and walked through that doorway of opportunity…you do not slam it shut behind you…you reach back, and you give other folks the same chances that helped you succeed, she socked the Romney-Paul Ryan brand of 1-percenter economics without ever throwing a punch. It was deft, it was subtle, and for an apolitical speech, it was a masterstroke of political savvy.
For daily convention coverage, follow Joy Reid on Twitter at @thereidreport