Tuesday, September 4, 2012

“When Michelle Obama spoke at the 2008 Democratic National Convention, she was warily viewed as a woman proud of her country “for the first time” and caricatured by The New Yorker as an Afroed and armed rebel soldier.

Four years later, she’s now better known as the fashionista first lady who tells us to eat our vegetables.

While President Obama was steadily losing favor over the last four years, his wife was undergoing a successful public makeover. In keeping with tradition, the first lady has mostly steered clear of politics to focus on feel-good projects such as outreach to military families, organic gardening, and efforts to fight childhood obesity. Voters have seen her competing against talk-show hosts Ellen DeGeneres and Jimmy Fallon in friendly push-up contests and gracing a coffee-table book holding a basket overflowing with fresh produce.

But although Michelle Obama’s public image has changed, the goal of her convention speech on Tuesday isn’t much different than it was four years ago. Like Ann Romney did for her husband last week in Tampa, a spouse’s job is to bring out the candidate’s softer side. Nobody knows a husband better than his wife.”