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Can there be any more exciting news than America electing its first black president? Yes: America getting its first black First Lady, Michelle Obama. This is the closest a woman will be getting to the top job in the US for quite some time, so let's make the most of it.
Michelle - not Barack - is the real change America needs. She has made it clear she is the sort of person who would rather die than stand for election. When asked recently if she would ever stand for the Senate, she snapped back: "Ugh. No thanks." Throughout her career (with her community affairs job at University of Chicago Hospitals currently on hold), she has represented practical politics and direct local action, not policy and grand-standing.
This suspicion of high office makes her exactly the type who should be given power and influence. You can't help thinking that she is the one a lot of people - especially one-time Hillary supporters - really voted for.
No one doubts Michelle has been the Obama campaign's trump card. At one stage she gave 30 campaign speeches in five days. Her call-to-arms at the final rally in Littleton, Colorado, surely swayed some who might otherwise have stayed at home. She writes all her own material and delivers it, without notes, in 45-minute bursts.
But she is not a dull intellectual. A fan of Stevie Wonder, she loves to hold hula-hooping competitions with her daughters Malia, 10, and Sasha, seven. Many pundits argue that two-for-the-price-of-one election tickets are undemocratic. But it's foolish idealism to think a husband and wife can operate in separate worlds and not influence each other's views - especially when they have been together for almost 20 years, as have the Obamas.
The strength and honesty of their modern, equal partnership was inspiring to voters. The disparity in the McCains' "traditional" relationship was just as blindingly obvious: Cindy once famously returned home from India with an adopted baby without having told her husband a thing about it.
As a First Lady, Michelle Obama will be the best thing that office has ever known - because like all working mothers, she embodies so many contradictions. She is fiercely intelligent but also chatty and likeable. She is assertive but maternal. She is career-minded but still puts her children first.
Only one thing worries me. Mrs Obama reminds me of Cherie Blair (of whom, incidentally, I am a fan). She was another woman who could as easily do the job as her husband. With Cherie's intelligence but a lack of murky political ambition, Michelle has the potential to be great. Just as long as, unlike Cherie, she keeps her record pure. Time for a mantra: no bad hair days, no singing in public and no freebies. Keep on hula-hooping, though.
Oh, what a lovely tug-of-war
Some divorces end up very high-stakes, don't they? With Madonna and Guy Ritchie, it's not Macho versus Macha (the new US word for the do-it-all woman). It's London v New York. She wants the kids back in America. He wants them to stay here.
Unfortunately, our more attractive capital is at an unfair disadvantage — we have Guy Ritchie representing us. Hopefully Madonna can see past this and remind herself why she once thought London was the place to raise her children. Great schools and parks, branches of Giraffe on every corner… all that's missing is Carlos Leon (Lourdes's father and the real reason for the move to NY).
Come on, Madge, buy Carlos a ticket. He'd love it over here. I have the ideal personal training client lined up — a recently separated pub-owning mockney with time on his hands.
Reader views (2)
You wouldn't be so thrilled about the prospect of Mrs BHO if you lived over here.
- Sledgewig, USA, 09/11/2008 01:33
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I am waiting to jump on the bandwagon with Michelle. I believe that if she announced or endorsed a nationwide community level project of service, volunterring or mentoring in this country that there would be such a response as we have not seen in many years. She has become an instant role model to so many young people and they will get involved for the first time. We are working mothers and grandmothers who are creating a common goal in our community with service and mentoring who are looking to someone like Michelle to say that as a nation we need to get into the cities and towns and be mentors to those who would like to get involved and volunteer and just don't know where to go, and we need to create volunteers of our children. I would love to be on the ground floor with any community outreach that Michelle would create or endorse.
ps. it is very sad that the media thought more about Michelle's dress on such an historical evening.
- Debbie Cardone, Burleson, TX , USA, 07/11/2008 05:33
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