The first lady focused on her hopes for what our next president will teach America’s children in her speech before the Democratic National Convention Monday night.
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While Michelle Obama plays a significant role in writing her own speeches, the White House acknowledged that she did receive some help from Sarah Hurwitz, a speechwriter who previously worked for Hillary Clinton and who even wrote the speech that Melania Trump was accused of plagiarizing at the RNC just a week earlier.
Obama had many in the audience in tears as she talked about her African American daughters playing on the lawn of the White House, which was built by slaves.
She said that children watch “every word we utter, every action we take” as First Lady and President.
“With every word we utter, with every action we take, we know our kids are watching us”, she said.
Obama said Hillary has “never quit on anything in her life” and made people wonder if that also might be a reference to her husband.
Music provided courtesy of APM Music.
But polls in the last week have shown a tightening race, with Trump overtaking Hillary Clinton in some instances.
In expressing her enthusiasm for Hillary Clinton’s nomination, Obama brought civility back into the public discourse. Mark Kirk (R-IL) this year and has over and over again expressed reluctance about her husband’s decision to go into politics in the first place – not exactly the sign of an insatiable political animal who’ll miss this life terribly. Clinton has been at her best when delivering her speeches in a conversational style, avoiding the shouting that can undermine so many pols who act like volume equates to enthusiasm.
Michelle started her address providing a powerful anecdote about her teenage daughters who arrived at the White House as children. But the Vermont senator managed to lift the mood by reminding his followers of their success in nailing progressive planks to the platform, by insisting Clinton “must be” president “based on her ideas and leadership”, and in warning what a Trump presidency “would mean to civil liberties, equal rights and the future of our country”. And I am here tonight because in this election, there is only one person who I trust with that responsibility – only one person who I believe is truly qualified to be President of the United States.
So don’t let anyone ever tell you that this country isn’t great, that somehow we need to make it great again.
Instead, we must work everyday to raise children and young people with a consciousness that our dreams and self-fulfillment must be grounded in “leaving something better for our [for everyone’s] kids”.
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“What we heard was a deeply pessimistic vision of a country where we turn against each other, and turn away from the rest of the world”.
