Michelle’s moment

James and I have now installed ourselves in a bit of space at the Pepsi Centre in Denver. The stage is all set up, Obamabilia is being sold in the halls and musicians are warming up for the opening night of the Democratic National Convention. Tonight is, essentially, Michelle Obama’s coming-out party, a speech from the woman everyone has heard of but hardly anyone has heard from. The narrative about her is already being spun furiously: a working class Chicago girl unlike the super-rich Cindy McCain, A headstrong woman and devoted wife, as she puts it “I’m married to this guy Barack and that’s about it.” The spouse matters in American politics – think of the votes Laura Bush hauled in. Mrs Obama has to deliver.
 
She has serious repair work to do after her unscripted remark during a run of  Obama victories in the primaries that “for the first time in my adult life I’m proud of my country”. This dovetailed with their former pastor’s “God damn America” outbursts to underscore concerns about the couple’s patriotism which the New Yorker tried to satirise with the “fist bump” cover. And some of her humanising has fallen into the “too much information” category – we don’t need to know that Obama snores and has foul morning breath. I wonder if the Hillary fans – still mourning the death of their joint ticket – will draw unfavourable comparisons with their candidate’s well-received spousal performances.
 
I suspect the Camerons are watching this quite relieved they don’t have to lay on a similar performance. Samantha Cameron (who I believe would be viewed as a national treasure as PM’s wife) jokes that she’d say all sort of indiscrete things if she’d adopt a speaking roll. I very much doubt it, but almost all of the publicity she’s done so far has been arranged by Smythsons – not the Tories.
 
As Cameron knows, so much of politics is about the character of the candidate. Hence the interest in his wife. There are few better people to vouch for the character of the candidate than the spouse. That’s why so much is riding on how Michelle does tonight.