Reaching back to her Chicago roots, Obama tells an American story
DENVER - Michelle Obama last night opened the Democratic National Convention that will nominate her husband for president with a high-stakes speech designed to place her family squarely within the experience of American households everywhere.
It is a challenge each nominee's spouse before her has faced, notably Teresa Heinz Kerry in 2004, but one that is also entirely unique to her: As the first potential African-American first lady, Michelle Obama has an unusually complicated task in trying to relate to and connect with the millions of families across the country looking for a president who understands and represents them.
To make that link, she weaved together her family's story, the story of many voters listening last night, and the stories of the "ordinary folks" on Chicago's South Side with whom Barack Obama worked as a community organizer.
"They believed - like you and I believe - that America should be a place where you can make it if you try," she said. Her husband, she said, "reminded us that we know what our world should look like. He said, we know what fairness and justice and opportunity look like. And he urged us to believe in ourselves - to find the strength within ourselves to strive for the world as it should be. And isn't that the great American story?"
The theme of the opening night, "One Nation," summed up the grand ambitions Democratic leaders set for the convention kickoff. In addition to aligning the Obamas' story with the country's, the program was meant to showcase the Democrats' broad, multicultural body politic, with speeches from prominent black, Asian-American, and Hispanic figures.
Even with an emotion-filled appearance by an ailing Senator Edward M. Kennedy, last night's spotlight was trained firmly on Michelle Obama, an accomplished hospital executive, lawyer, and mother of two who has been an outspoken advocate for her husband. She began quietly and tentatively, but drew the crowd in - and some to tears - with her personal testament to her character and that of her husband.
Michelle Obama has become a lightning rod for the right, largely for a comment she made months ago about how this campaign was the first time she had been proud of the United States. (She and the campaign later qualified that remark, insisting she meant to say that she has never been as proud as she is now.)
After that controversy, Michelle Obama went on a public-relations blitz, appearing on shows such as "The View" and on the covers of magazines aimed at women and African-Americans, and by giving unprecedented access to the Obamas' two young daughters, Malia and Sasha. In another sense, she seemed to lower her profile, even saying at one point that she was "taking some cues" from Laura Bush, the reserved first lady.
The question last night was what role Obama would fill: the blunt-spoken saleswoman for her husband, the more traditional, nonconfrontational spouse, or some hybrid of the two. In the end, she chose a safe and reassuring course.
Michelle Obama told the convention that "each of us also comes here tonight by way of our own improbable journey." She came, she said, as a sister, a wife, a mother, and a daughter.
"All of us [are] driven by the simple belief that the world as it is just won't do - that we have an obligation to fight for the world as it should be," she said. "And that is the thread that connects our hearts. That is the thread that runs through my journey and Barack's journey and so many other improbable journeys that have brought us here tonight, where the current of history meets this new tide of hope. And you see, that is why I love this country."
That kind of language was music to the ears of Betty Pace, a Democratic delegate from Winchester, Ky., who said she had been concerned about Michelle Obama's views on the United States.
"Tonight she kind of verified that she did love America," Pace said.
Pace's daughter, Donna Melton of Frankfurt, Ky., also liked that Michelle Obama emphasized her domestic life over her professional life. "She allowed us to see her as a mother and as a wife, and not so strong-willed and independent," she said.
While much has been made of Michelle Obama's glamour - some have even compared her to Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis - she also emphasized her middle-class roots. She and her brother grew up with a father who, despite suffering from multiple sclerosis, supported the family on the salary he earned tending boilers at a city water-filtration plant.
"She opens up hearts and brings out tears," said Jackie Lucien, a campaign volunteer from Northridge, Calif.
Valerie Jarrett, a long-time friend of the couple's and a senior adviser to the campaign, told reporters yesterday that Michelle Obama's speech was written "to really describe from her heart her family, her roots, the values by which she was raised, the same values by which Barack was raised."
Asked about conservatives' attacks on Michelle Obama, Jarrett said, "What we've seen in the past about Michelle . . . has been a complete distortion of the Michelle Obama that I know."
Last night's program was also crafted to give voters a full picture of Obama's life and background from those who have known him best and speakers who could vouch for him personally, professionally, and politically.
Obama's half-sister, Maya Soetoro-Ng, and Michelle Obama's brother, Craig Robinson, were on stage to address the Obamas' modest, middle-class backgrounds, his in Honolulu and Indonesia, hers on Chicago's South Side.
Figures such as Emil Jones, the Illinois Senate president and one of Obama's political mentors, and Illinois State Comptroller Dan Hynes, whom Obama beat in the 2004 US Senate primary, were there to speak to his political mettle. Jerry Kellman, who hired Obama for his first major community-organizing job in Chicago, was there to talk up his commitment to social justice. And Senators Claire McCaskill and Amy Klobuchar, who gave him key endorsements during the primary contest, were there to talk about his potential to change the country.
Elaine and Fred McDowell, Democratic delegates from Lake County, Fla., said they hoped last night's program would put to rest the smears about who Obama is and where he comes from.
"Some people will finally see that he's not a Muslim, he's a Christian, and a family man," Elaine McDowell said.
McDowell added that she did not just want to hear about Barack Obama, but wanted to know what Michelle Obama's passion would be as first lady.
"What does she bring to it?" she said.
But Michelle Obama was out more than anything to humanize her husband, to share the side of him and one of her the public doesn't always see, and to assure voters that the country will be safe in his hands.
Speaking of her daughters, she said, "And one day, they - and your sons and daughters - will tell their own children about what we did together in this election. They'll tell them how this time, we listened to our hopes, instead of our fears. How this time, we decided to stop doubting and to start dreaming. How this time, in this great country - where a girl from the South Side of Chicago can go to college and law school, and the son of a single mother from Hawaii can go all the way to the White House - we committed ourselves to building the world as it should be."
When she finished, the band played Stevie Wonder's "Isn't She Lovely," her daughters joined her onstage, and supporters throughout the hall waved signs that read "Common Values, Common Purpose."
Then Barack Obama joined the festivities, appearing on a big video screen in the Pepsi Center via satellite from Kansas City, telling his daughters from afar: "Love you guys. Sleep tight."
Scott Helman can be reached at shelman@globe.com. 