Michelle Obama played it safe tonight. Gone was the sassy campaigner I remember seeing in Iowa and South Carolina.
The aim of the speech was to introduce Michelle Obama to the public and to dispel the idea of her as an angry, divisive figure. On that score, it worked.
Michelle Obama sounded both humble and proud of her country—the opposite of how her critics portray her. By talking about her father, she was able to emphasise his commitment to work and self-reliance, one of the key American values. Describing how he coped with MS, she said simply that he “woke up a little earlier and worked a little harder.”
Her main theme was how Barack’s desire to see the world as it should be not as it is was what attracted her to him. It brought her to the emotional high point of the speech, although if truth be told the passage was relatively devoid of substance:
“That is the thread that connects our hearts.
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