Freddy Gray Freddy Gray

Wholesome, intimate and suspiciously vague: The Michelle Obama Podcast reviewed

Michelle and Barack‘s admiration for each other feels real and clear – or at least brilliantly faked

Michelle Obama talks so much about ‘becoming we’ and ‘we-ness’ that it's quite easy to forget that mostly she is just talking about herself. Photo: Nathan Congleton / NBCU Photo Bank / Getty Images 
issue 22 August 2020

Back in March, I made a long-odds bet that Michelle Obama would be the Democratic party’s vice-presidential nominee. I knew that in her memoir, Becoming, she had said that she wasn’t interested in high office. But political candidates always claim they aren’t running — until suddenly they are.

Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee, had already said he’d take Michelle as his VP ‘in a heartbeat’, which struck me as funny since, if Biden’s heart stopped beating, his VP would become commander-in-chief. Since Biden had been Michelle husband’s running mate, the idea of a 2020 Biden-Obama ticket had a fairytale symmetry that would thrill the public. Strategists crunched the numbers and found that, with an Obama on the ticket, Biden could cruise to victory in November.

Yet that was all wrong. Biden went for Kamala Harris, who is a West Coast version of Barack with more balls. It turns out Michelle really didn’t want to return to the political front line.

Comments

Join the debate for just $5 for 3 months

Be part of the conversation with other Spectator readers by getting your first three months for $5.

Already a subscriber? Log in