Washington —Former first lady Michelle Obama celebrated Kamala Harris’ presidential candidacy in a speech at the Democratic convention On Tuesday, she compared her candidacy to that of her husband Barack Obama in 2008.
“America, hope is coming back,” she said, referring to his iconic 2008 campaign about hope.
“There’s something wonderfully magical in the air, isn’t there?” she said, drawing huge applause on the second night of the convention. “We feel it here in this arena, but it’s spreading throughout the country that we love. A familiar feeling that’s been buried too deep for too long. You know what I’m talking about? It’s the infectious power of hope!”
Michelle Obama has spoken at every convention since 2008, when her husband was first nominated. Eight years later, she is delivered her memorable line: “When they go low, we go high.” In her 2020 speech, she said that then-President Trump was “clearly not in trouble” and “can’t handle this moment.”
Obama noted that she was last in Chicago for a memorial service for her mother, Marian Robinson, who died in may. Her mother, she said, “set my moral compass high and showed me the power of my voice,” and she said months later, “I still feel her loss so deeply — I wasn’t even sure I would be steadfast enough to stand before you tonight.”
She added that she felt obligated to attend the convention to honor her memory and “that aspirational sense of hope” that she lived “every day of her life.” And the values Obama inherited from her mother are ones she sees in Harris, too.
“Kamala Harris and I have built our lives on the same fundamental values,” Obama said.
Alyssa Pointer / REUTERS
The former first lady tried to get Harris and Trump during her speech, while only mentioning the former president by name once.
“Kamala has shown her loyalty to this nation not by expressing anger and bitterness, but by living a life of service and always opening up the possibilities for others. She understands that most of us will never be given the grace to fail,” Harris said.
She called Harris “more than ready for this moment” and called her “one of the most qualified people to ever run for president.”
“It couldn’t be clearer of the two most important candidates in this race“Only Kamala Harris truly understands the invisible labor and unwavering dedication that has always made America great,” she said. “Now, unfortunately, we know what comes next.”
“For years, Donald Trump did everything he could to make people afraid of us. His narrow, constricted view of the world made him feel threatened by the existence of two hardworking, educated, successful people who happened to be black.”
Then she said wittily, “Who’s going to tell him that the job he’s applying for now might be one of those ‘black jobs’?”
It was a reference to Trump, who in the Debate in June claimed to President Biden that immigrants were taking “black jobs.”
During the speech, Obama also briefly mentioned IVF, which she used to conceive both of her daughters. In a Trump presidency, “eroding our health care, taking away our freedom to control our bodies, the freedom to become mothers through IVF, as I did — those things are not going to improve the health outcomes of our women, mothers and daughters,” she said. Obama first revealed her use of IVF in her book“Become.”
She called on Americans to “do something” to help Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, get elected.
“In some states, just a handful — listen to me — a handful of votes in each precinct can determine the winner. So we must vote in numbers that remove all doubt. We must overwhelm every attempt to suppress us,” she said. “Let us work as if our lives depend on it, and let us continue to move our country forward and go higher, yes, always higher than we have ever gone before.”
Given her popularity, Democrats and Republicans have speculated for years that she will run for the White House, though the former first lady has repeatedly expressed her distaste for politics.
After Mr Biden’s nonsense debate performance in late June, a Reuters/Ipsos poll of registered voters found Michelle Obama to be the only Democrat to beat Trump in a hypothetical matchup. She had 50% support, compared to 39% for Trump.
