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Daily Planet Staff Report

Michelle Obama stumped for her husband Barack, a contender for the Democratic nomination for president, with an hour-long speech emphasizing fairness on the quad at UNC Asheville that drew around 3,500 people on a sunny, balmy Friday evening.

In the Obama campaign’s first foray into Western North Carolina, Michelle expressed delight with the crowd and especially with the presence of her friend and former Motown singing star, Gladys Knight, who earlier had sang an emotional rendition of “God Bless America.” Knight lives in the Fairview community.

At noon on the same day, Hillary Clinton made a campaign stop in downtown Hendersonville, drawing about 2,500 people to a speech in front of the newly refurbished courthouse.

Her Hendersonville talk followed her April 24 speech at the Thomas Wolfe Auditorium in Asheville that drew a capacity crowd of 2,500 people. This past Sunday, her husband, ex-president Bill, brought her campaign to two churches in the Asheville area.

Clinton’s Asheville audience was largely white, female and older. In contrast, the Obama campaign drew a number of younger voters, including a number of young whites, African-Americans of all ages and a mix of older whites. The crowd warmed up with chants that included “Yes we can!” and “Fired up and ready to go!”
The rally, with a heavy security presence clearly evident, began at 6 p.m., with Michelle appearing at 6:50 to chants of “First Lady!”

“Thank you!” a beaming Michelle told the cheering crowd. “It’s beautiful here!” She noted that he had been delayed on an airport runway for two hours in a storm before arriving in Asheville.

“When I heard Gladys Knight would be here, I started singing, ‘I got to go! I got to go!’” she said with a broad smile in reference to a lyric fragment from the 1973 No. 1 hit song “Midnight Train to Georgia” by Gladys Knight & the Pips, recorded just after they left Motown.

Michelle also thanked the students from UNCA for inviting her to speak on the campus.

She spent much of her speech describing hers and Barack’s humble beginnings and rise to where they are now, often against the odds.

Michelle also told of how the bar by the Democratic Party constantly has been raised or shifted for her husband, as he constantly has been told that he would not be able to compete.

“The first year (of the campaign was as the deep, deep underdog, so this front-runner status” is a strange experience, she said.

Intially, Barack was told that he would not be able to raised enough campaign money, “so he started reaching out to the regular folks,” Michelle said. His success was innovative and spectacular and, “as a result, Barack has changed the rules of fund-raising forever.”

As gusts of wind made occasional sweeps through the quad, Michelle found her dress occasionally billowing, triggering her to joke about “trying not to flash the crowd.”

The audience laughed as she added, “I caught it (her dress), though. I’m not going to be on U-Tube,” in a reference to an unflattering shot of Hillary Clinton, whom she never named in her speech.

After Barack achieved the campaign war chest requirement, “they said money isn’t important,” Michelle continued. Doubters said Barack could not build the organization required to run a successful campaign.  “So Barack began building an organization with regular people who’ve (mostly) never volunteered before. Barack built a political organization that’s bottom up.”

“Then they said, ‘Organization isn’t everything’ and that the true test is Iowa — and there’s no way Barack can win in Iowa,” Michelle recounted. “And we won in Iowa ... We are very proud of what we did in Iowa. We talked” to the regular people, crisscrossing the state in near nonstop campaigning. With a grin, she added, “And we ate fried ... stuff — on sticks!” The crowd roared with laughter as she made a face at the country food.

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Former Motown star Gladys Knight, now a Fairview resident, sang “God Bless America,” noting that she meant every word of the song, before Michelle Obama’s address. Daily Planet Staff Photo

“Obama won Iowa and he won by a huge margin of victory ... Then they said Iowa didn’t count — it was just a caucus ... They said what’s important is to be ahead in the national polls. Barack was behind by double digits.

“Then there was New Hampshire. He won. Then we were excited about South Carolina, but they said it was a black state and didn’t count ... Barack didn’t just win the black vote, he won every county in South Carolina except two.”

In essence, Michelle said, “Barack has won in big and small states, red and blue states, rural and urban states” and is leading in superdelegate counts and national polls.

“Oh, yes,” she added, “Barack did win the Texas caucus. Yes, he did!”

Despite the ups and downs of the campaign, Michelle said the Obamas have learn two things:
• “That the American people are hungry for change.”

• “We still are living in a nation where the bar is set. When you reach out to grab the bar, they move the bar ... They change the game. They keep changing the bar on Barack.”

Michelle asserted that “the irony is that that’s the same thing that’s happening to the people of America,” as the powers-that-be keep raising the bar on regular Americans.

“What happens in a nation where the bar is ever-chaning — people become cynical. So we stay home. We don’t care.

“People are afraid. And the problem with fear is it cuts us off ... Your’re naturally looking for someone to blame,” rather than bonding with neighbors.

“We’re spending too much time saying it can’t be done,” Michelle said. With Barack’s campaign, she said, “We’re passing it on to our children — they’re all full of potential.”

“In 2008, with all we’ve overcome — and we’ve overcome a lot — our kids should be able to dream huge dreams ... That is the vision Barack Obama has for this country — and that’s why I’m here.”

“But we’re not there. We’re struggling ... I know that because I can see life has gotten harder — not easier — for working people.”

At that point, Michelle pointedly said that “I am the product of a working-class family.” Therefore, she asked in response to accusations she has faced by detractors as an elitist, “Tell me where I’m out of touch?”

“The fact of the matter is there is one candidate in the race who knows what’s going on. That’s Barack....”

As Americans, she said, “We haven’t said for a long time that we have a mutual obligation to each other,” which she termed a requirement to survive as a democracy.

“We’re a nation at war now,” Michelle noted. “We’re sacrificing every day. We’re proud of our troops ... But our leadership has told us: ‘Don’t worry about the war — just keep shopping.’” The crowd roared with laughter at her characterization of the Bush administration.

Barack knows, she continued that, “you know, our souls are broken, and we’ve lost our way ... The only one with a chance” to make the major changes necessary for a course correction for America is Barack, Michelle said.

“I love my husband. And he is cute — and cute is good! But cute can’t run the country,” she quipped, as the crowd laughed. More importantly, she said Barack is highly intelligent, innovative and has a unique set of values that sets him apart from the other candidates remaining in the race.

“Everything in this race has to do with character ... and choices,” she said. “My father always said you measure character” by “what you did when it didn’t count.”

Contrary to assertions by his critics, “Barack is not from some privileged circumstance ... He is the product of an 18-year-old single parent — a black kid with a white mother in the 1960s. ... His mother was a dreamer — a little bit naive ... Sometimes they lived on Food Stamps, but Barack also got to see the world in a different way” than his opponents in the presidential campaign.

“He actually got to live in some of the villages” around the world. “There’s no one else in this race” who can say the same, she noted.

She added that “Barack also was raised by maternal grandparents — one from Kansas. The only difference was race.”

From his unusually varied upbringing, he has emerged as a unique individual, Michelle said, and “that’s why I married Barack! The way he’s run his race,” trying to refrain from mudslinging with his  opponents, “is a direct reflection of his values.”

“Barack doesn’t cut his opponent in itty-bitty pieces” because he was raised to be positive. He also inculcated the value that “to one who much is given, much is expected,” she said.

“Barack is a man who’s tried to lead his life on his values. I’ve watched him struggle with his values” — and sometimes fail,” she said.

“When he graduated from college (Columbia University and then Harvard Law School), he could have worked for a law firm and made lots of money and instead he became a community organizer, constitutional law scholar and civil rights attorney” in a poor area of Chicago, Michelle noted. “And they say this doesn’t count for experience.”

After a pause, she asserted, “You tell me if there’s another candidate in this race that can claim to have made the decisions he did!” The crowd cheered.

She also noted that her husband has more legislative experience than his opponents, but that much of it has not been publicized. “Barack got a lot done in Illinois in the shadows ... He got ethics reform done — not an easy thing to do in Illinois.”

In addition, she said, “Some interpret his unwillingness to cut his opponent apart” as a sign of weakness, but she contended it shows Barack’s inner strength and character.

“He was in politics in Chicago ... Let me tell you — Chicago has some of the meanest, toughest politics” in the world. Michelle noted that Barack dealt with Illinios politics for eight years.

“Let me tell you abour Barck — he never takes the easy road ... Now we’ve got people playing with the nation” with the idea of a “gas (tax) holiday” this summer. “It’s a gimmick,” Michelle said. “Barack said this is too serious to play games.”

She said her husband is “betting on you that, if he tells you the truth and you understand it, you will support him. It’s not a quick fix.”

Michelle said “the war in Iraq is Exhibit A ... Every candidate in this race, with the exception of Barack, led us right into that (Iraq) war.”

However, she noted, Barack’s detractors said his opposition to the war “didn’t count because he wasn’t in the U.S. Senate” at the time of the vote. Instead, Michelle said, “he was in a tough race (in Illinois) that Barack wasn’t supposed to win. They said Barack Obama wa too young. Then they said that he was too black — and then not black enough. Then, they made fun of his name — enough to put doubts in the minds of an unsure voter.”

To his credit, Barack responds to all of the challenges he faces “calmly and acting presidential because he’s heard it all before,” she said.

“What you get with Barack Obama,” Michelle asked. “You’re not going to get a perfect leader.” As his wife, she said she knows “he is a completely imperfect vessel. But Barack will work hard every day to make the bar even” for every American.

“The question in this race is, are we ready and what are we ready for,” Michell said. “We have to be ready to put down this cynicism.

“Barack is saying, ‘Come with me and move beyond” politics as usual “for change. But you’ve got to be ready to let go of the past and move into the future ... And if you’re ready for that, the only choice is Barack Obama. he is the only choice, not only in the primary, but in the general” election.

She told of visiting a beauty shop in Newberry, S.C., where a little 10-year-old girl pushed her way through the crowd to get a picture taken with her. After the photo was taken, the girl turned to Michelle and told her, “You realize if your husband becomes president of the United States, it’ll be historical?”

“I said, ‘yes,’ and asked her, ‘What does that mean to you?’”

Her eyes wide, the little girl replied, “That means I can dream of anything for myself.”

Michelle told the crowd, “She knows she’s already five steps behind,” as an African-American born into challenging means. “She also knows she’s so much better than this nation’s limited expectation for her.”

In a more general way, regardless of race, the situation is applicable to “all of us,” she said.

“I say to you what keeps me going is the image of a man like Barack Obama with his hand on the Bible,” being sworn in as president, Michelle said. “If we can do that for the kids in our nation,” she asked the crowd to imagine the impact on children — and adults — in third-world countries around the world to see her husband as president.

“Can we do this?” she asked.

“Yes, we can!” the crowd responded.

“We’ll need your help every step of the way,” Michelle said. “Thank you so much!”