NO ONE does a hug quite like Michelle Obama. She reaches her slender arms deep into the crowd to give an unbridled embrace. It’s an inhibition-free, personal space-invading, body-pressing clasp that makes each recipient feel like they’ve had an intimate connection with the first lady.
After a half-hour rousing speech at Cuyahoga Community College’s gymnasium near Cleveland this week, she lingered among the crowd for a further 20 minutes, hugging on demand before being peeled away by anxious-looking secret service agents.
Mrs Obama, it seems, is the nation’s hugger-in-chief. And it’s this personal, caring side that makes her such as formidable presence on the election campaign trail.
Negative sniping, sluggish economic growth and thwarted ambition have dulled the sheen of the man the country elected in 2008. Michelle Obama’s job, it seems, is to remind wavering middle-class voters what they liked about her husband when they supported him all those years ago. Her speech is by turns folksy, personal – but also deeply political.
“I’m excited to be here in Ohio because it gives me a chance to talk about the man I love and admire,” says Mrs Obama to a cacophony of cheers and applause.
“You all know him, you’ve seen him. He’s cute. He’s not just cute, he’s fiiiiine. He’s still cute! ... But that’s not why I married him: listen up, fellas. What truly made me fall in love with Barack Obama was his character. What you see in this man everyday is his decency, his honesty, his compassion and conviction. You see, I loved that Barack was so committed to serving other people that he turned down well high-paying jobs. He started out his career fighting to get people back to work in struggling communities.”
She tends to hover above the partisan fray, without getting down and dirty. During her speech, she doesn’t mention Mitt Romney’s name once.
But there is thinly-veiled criticism at a political philosophy that favours cutting taxes for the rich and leaving ordinary workers in the lurch.
“Your president believes that teachers and firefighters should not have to pay higher taxes than millionaires and billionaires,” she says, to roars of approval. “And while some folks were willing to let the auto industry go under, and more than one million jobs would have been lost, Barack had the backs of the American workers. He fought hard to protect American families and that’s why today the auto industry is back.”
This is the most political Michelle Obama has been after four years in the White House. For most of her time, the Harvard-educated lawyer has tended to stick to a “mother-in-chief” tone. Soft-focus magazine interviews have revealed how she and her husband make time to exercise together each morning or that her favourite movie is It’s a Wonderful Life.
It must be frustrating for a woman who, in private, is said to be a forceful advisor on the presidency and campaign trail. But her unscripted contributions have, on occasion, proven to be a real hindrance.
During the 2008 primaries, she would often speak her mind in blunt terms, offering all too real examples of her husband’s bad breath and snoring. They didn’t go down well with Democrat advisors or focus groups. Her comments about needing to be able to “run a home” in order to run the White House were seen as a needlessly sharp dig at Mr Obama’s then competitor, Hillary Clinton.
She has learned. By focusing on non-controversial issues such as ending childhood obesity, she has built a large fan base which extends across the political divide. She now surpasses her husband’s public approval ratings, making her one of the most popular figures in American political life. That much was clear outside Cuyahoga Community College this week, as thousands waited for hours in the wind and the rain for a chance to see the first lady.
Stalls selling merchandise were doing a steady trade in the “Mom-in-chief” T-shirts, along with T-shirts of the Obama family.
“Anything with her picture on it, people are interested in,” says Victoria, a stall owner from California who’s following Obama and Romney around the country.
Inside the venue, the crowd waiting to hear the first lady were overwhelmingly African-Americans (though the carefully-selected backdrop of people on stage included a much more diverse collection of ethnicities).
Monie Lewis (16) was among the crowd with her schoolfriends. She said Michelle was still an icon and role model for a new generation of black women. “They’re like the American dream, a real family,” she said.
Geraldine Dickerson (68), originally from Mississippi, was wearing an overcoat festooned with Obama badges.
She remembers a time when racial segregation was rife and is still getting used to the fact that the first lady is an African-American.
“It is just awesome,” she said. “I never thought that would happen in my lifetime. But they say this is America and anything can happen. And it did.”
