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Chrishayden
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Username: Chrishayden
Post Number: 3442
Registered: 03-2004
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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, January 23, 2007 - 02:55 pm: | 
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http://www.positiveblackimage.com/
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Tonya
AALBC .com Platinum Poster
Username: Tonya
Post Number: 4159
Registered: 07-2006
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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, January 23, 2007 - 03:31 pm: |
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Thanks Chris... I hope you don't mind...
I love Michelle!
The woman behind Obama
January 21, 2007
BY ROSALIND ROSSI Staff Reporter
Backstage, behind the floodlights, moments before he gave the 2004 Democratic convention keynote address that would launch his career into the national stratosphere, Barack Obama made a confession to his wife, Michelle.
His stomach was a bit queasy.
Michelle responded by hugging her husband tight and looking him straight in the eye, Obama recalls in his book, The Audacity of Hope.
"Just don't screw it up, Buddy!'' Michelle said, transforming the tense moment into one of shared laughter.
The remark is classic Michelle Obama -- a woman who faces reality head-on with candor, humor and tenacity, who keeps her husband grounded, who keeps him real.
"He is the senator. His profile is soaring,'' said consultant and friend Avis LaVelle, national press secretary to Bill Clinton during his successful 1992 presidential campaign.
"But every high-flying kite needs somebody with their feet on the ground. And that's Michelle.''
In the nearly 2 1/2 years since Obama's rousing address, the junior Democratic U.S. senator from Illinois has become a familiar figure on Sunday morning talk shows, the cover of Time and Newsweek, and the front pages of newspapers nationwide.
Meanwhile, the woman who never really wanted a political life has stayed mostly behind the scenes.
But Obama's announcement last week that he is exploring a 2008 bid for president inches Michelle LaVaughn Robinson Obama ever closer to the floodlights, to the strange blend of curiosity and scrutiny that awaits the wives of presidential candidates.
Obama, 45, would never make a run for president without his 43-year-old wife's approval and careful counsel, those close to her say. Rest assured, Michelle, a devoted mother, has weighed the impact on the couple's two daughters, Malia, 8, and Natasha, 5.
"There are arguments to be made that maybe [a presidential bid] is better when they are younger,'' said Verna Williams, a University of Cincinnati law professor and one of Michelle's closest friends at Harvard Law School.
"If anything, you can count on Michelle to have thought through whether it's better to do it now, as opposed to four years from now, as opposed to eight years from now.''
Bungalow baby
Barack Obama's credentials have become familiar to millions: first African American president of the Harvard Law Review; University of Chicago law professor; two-term Illinois state senator; third African American U.S. senator since Reconstruction.
Michelle's resume may be less well known, but it is impressive.
She is a 1985 cum laude graduate of Princeton University; a 1988 graduate of Harvard Law School; a former associate dean at the University of Chicago, and currently a vice president at the University of Chicago Hospitals.
Michelle, who declined an interview request, sits on six boards, including the prestigious Chicago Council on Global Affairs and the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools.
"She's smart, she's successful and she's well liked and popular,'' said LaVelle, Mayor Daley's former press secretary.
"Long before there was a Barack Obama, there was a Michelle Robinson who was a star in her own right.''
And although Obama is an adopted Chicagoan -- born in Hawaii to a Kenyan economist father and a Kansas-bred cultural anthropologist mother -- his wife is pure Chicago.
Michelle's late father, Frasier Robinson, was a city pump operator and a Democratic precinct captain. Her mother, Marian, is a former Spiegel's secretary.
Michelle was raised in a one-bedroom apartment on the top floor of a classic Chicago brick bungalow, now surrounded by a chain link fence, in South Shore. Her mother still lives there, behind burglar-proof wrought iron doors and secured windows, poised above a hedge of clipped yews.
Gifted classes
From that outpost, early on, there were signs Michelle was a standout.
"As far back as any of us can remember, she was very bright,'' said her brother, Craig Robinson, who preceded his sister at Princeton to become its fourth highest-scoring basketball player.
Both Michelle and Craig, now head basketball coach at Brown University, learned to read at home by the age of 4.
Both skipped second grade (both their parents also skipped a grade). By sixth grade, Michelle joined a gifted class at what is now Bouchet Elementary, at 73rd and Jeffery.
The gifted program exposed Michelle to three years of French before she graduated as class salutatorian, and, for two years, to special biology classes at Kennedy King College.
There, the gifted class studied photosynthesis, worked in a laboratory and identified the muscles of dissected rat specimens, recalled childhood friend Chiaka Davis Patterson.
"This is not what normal seventh-graders were getting,'' Patterson said.
Playing with Barbie
In other ways, Michelle was a typical youngster.
When Craig Robinson battled Michelle, 16 months his junior, in Monopoly, he had to "let her win enough that she wouldn't quit.''
"My sister is a poor sport. She didn't like to lose,'' Robinson said.
Michelle also was athletic, playing baseball, football and basketball with her brother, father and mother — who, in her late 50s, won some short-distance running events at the Senior Olympics in Champaign.
Michelle has since grown into a 5-foot-11, sleek and striking woman who enjoys a good 4:30 a.m. workout. When she raised her arm to wave to an adoring 2004 Democratic convention crowd, she revealed just a whisper of bare, taut midriff.
But when she was little, Michelle loved "girl'' stuff.
She set up an Easy Bake Oven in her bedroom. She sprawled across the carpet with the African American version of Barbie, her mate, their toy house and car.
Later, as a young adult, children were "all she wanted,'' said close friend and consultant Yvonne Davila of D & T Communications. Now that she has them, she is an "amazing mom,'' Davila said.
"She's a family person first,'' Davila said. With kids, "she gives lots of love but at same time, there's no nonsense.''
Regular chores
Michelle coordinates playdates, ballet, gymnastics, tennis and piano lessons with what Obama calls "a general's efficiency.''
She pitches in at school potlucks – she tries to claim the dessert so she can pick up a pie at the store -- and makes time to sit in a folding chair, emblazoned with a soccer ball on the back, water bottle in hand, to watch her girls in their soccer league.
Michelle may live today in a $1.65 million Georgian revival Kenwood mansion, surrounded by a tall wrought iron fence, but Patterson remembers playing Barbie with her in "the smallest room I had ever seen. It was like a closet.''
Her bedroom was actually the apartment's living room, which had been converted with a divider down the middle, allowing her to share it with her brother until an addition was built.
In the Robinson household, both children had chores.
Every Saturday, Michelle had to clean the bathroom. She scrubbed the sink, mopped the floor and cleaned the toilet.
"We alternated washing dishes. I had Monday, Wednesday, Friday. Michelle had Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday,'' Craig Robinson said.
Today, in the Obama household, even Sen. Obama has to pitch in.
"Michelle keeps him very grounded. She makes him throw out the trash,'' said Davila.
"He makes the bed when he's in town. They are a couple. He's a husband and father, so when he's home he has to do things the way other people do them.''
'The place to go'
Three years after the city's first magnet high school opened, Michelle joined a group of hand-picked freshmen at state-of-the-art Whitney Young.
"That was the school to go to,'' said Patterson. "It was considered state of the art.''
But striving for the best was always the goal in the Robinson household.
"Without being immodest, we were always smart, we were always driven and we were always encouraged to do the best you can do, not just what's necessary,'' Craig Robinson said.
"And when it came to going to schools, we all wanted to go to the best schools we could,'' he said.
At Young, Michelle made the honor roll four years running, took advanced placement classes, was in the National Honor Society. She was student council treasurer and a member of the fundraising publicity committee.
Michelle stood out -- and not just because she was among the tallest girls in her class, said classmate Norm Collins.
She seemed to conquer everything "effortlessly,'' he said.
But behind the scenes, Michelle was a hard worker, her brother said.
"She's not the daughter of a bigwig or anything, where she's been handed something. She's worked for everything she's gotten,'' Robinson said.
"Aware of my blackness''
Later, at Princeton, Michelle was one of four roommates, all on financial aid, who shared a sparsely decorated common room and had to walk down three floors to the bathroom, said Princeton roommate Angela Acree.
"We were not rich,'' Acree said. "A lot of kids had TVs and sofas and furniture. We didn't."
For her work study assignment, Michelle coordinated an after school center, caring for children of Princeton's lunchroom and maintenance people.
She survived among high achievers by not only being smart, but being organized – a trait colleagues cite today.
"She was not a procrastinator,'' Acree said. "Michelle would always get her work done in advance so she was not sitting there facing some deadline the next day.''
In their common room, to unwind, Michelle and her roommates played Stevie Wonder records, swapped stories and "giggled and laughed hysterically,'' Acree recalls.
But Michelle's senior thesis reveals the sociology major was acutely aware of being among the few blacks then at Princeton.
"My experiences at Princeton have made me far more aware of my 'Blackness' than ever before,'' Michelle wrote in a 1985 thesis entitled "Princeton Educated Blacks and the Black Community.''
"I have found that at Princeton, no matter how liberal and open-minded some of my White professors and classmates try to be toward me, I sometimes feel like a visitor on campus, as if I really don't belong.
"Regardless of the circumstances under which I interact with Whites at Princeton, it often seems as if, to them, I will always be Black first and a student second.''
Early on at Princeton, Michelle wrote, she was determined to "utilize all of my present and future resources to benefit [the black] community first and foremost.'' Yet she now realized attending a launching pad like Princeton would "likely lead to my further integration and/or assimilation into a White cultural and social structure . . .
"As I enter my final year at Princeton, I find myself striving for many of the same goals as my White classmates -- acceptance to a prestigious graduate or professional school or a high-paying position in a successful corporation. Thus, my goals are not as clear as before.''
Could be the senator
At Harvard Law School, Michelle's intelligence so impressed classmate Verna Williams that she asked Michelle to be her partner on a mock trial case.
"She has incredible presence,'' Williams said. "She could very easily be the Sen. Obama that people are talking about. She's very, very smart, very charismatic, very well spoken – all the things that Barack is.''
At Harvard, Michelle mixed with rich and poor, working with Legal Aid clients and recruiting African American Harvard Law School alums to serve on Black Law Student Association panels.
Today, as vice president of external and community relations at the University of Chicago Hospitals, Michelle deals with the full economic spectrum seamlessly, said current boss Susan Sher, hospital general counsel.
"In community affairs, you're dealing with a range of people, from presidents of hospitals to community leaders to people who are poor . . . and she just has a way about her, a real kindness,'' said Sher, former city corporation counsel.
A special summer associate
After Michelle's law school graduation, she joined the kind of "successful corporation'' -- Chicago's Sidley & Austin -- she wrote about at Princeton. Her specialty: marketing and intellectual property.
If she had stayed longer, "she would have been a superstar,'' said Sidley senior counsel Newton Minow. "We were all crazy about her.''
Her first year, in walked Obama. Michelle was tapped as the young summer associate's advisor.
"I remember that she was tall – almost my height in heels -- and lovely, with a friendly, professional manner,'' Obama recalls in Audacity of Hope.
"Michelle was full of plans that day, on the fast track, with no time, she told me, for distractions -- especially men.''
Michelle tried to set Obama up with friends, but he wanted to take her out. Finally, she relented, and by the time Michelle called Williams to say she was dating someone new, Williams could tell this was something different, something special.
"She said, `Guess what? I've got this great guy in my life. His name is Barack,' '' Williams recalls. "It was clear she was pretty crazy about him.
"We had known each other when we dated other guys. You go through this whole `he's not ready for commitment' [thing] . . . .But this guy was none of those things. [Barack] was a good, solid guy.''
Four years later, in 1992, when the couple walked down the aisle of Trinity United Church of Christ. Michelle's childhood friend, Santita Jackson, daughter of the Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr., sang at the wedding.
"We all cried. It was so beautiful,'' said Valerie Jarrett, CEO of Habitat Co. but at the time Michelle's boss. "It's clear they were in love and each other's best friends.''
"Putting it on the table''
By then, Michelle had grown restless with corporate law. In 1991, before her marriage, she had joined the crew of energetic young people surrounding Mayor Daley in his early years in office. Jarrett, then deputy chief of staff, remembers interviewing Michelle for an assistant's job in the chief of staff's office.
"The moment I met her I knew immediately we would be lucky to have her,'' said Jarrett, who has since vacationed with the Obamas in Martha's Vineyard. "I was instantly impressed. I think I offered her a job at the end of the first meeting.''
Before she signed up, Michelle told Jarrett her fiance wanted to meet her "so he could figure out if he was comfortable with her going to work for Mayor Daley.''
Obama had "some trepidation'' about Michelle working in politics, Jarrett said. (Michelle later was not thrilled with the idea of Obama running for state senator.)
"I can remember sitting in [a restaurant] booth, with Barack on the other side, interrogating me in the nicest possible way,'' Jarrett said.
"I can't think of many people you hire who say, `I'd like you to meet my fiancé,' but I would have done just about anything to get Michelle.''
At City Hall, Michelle confronted issues head-on.
"I've been in so many settings or meetings with Michelle where people are talking all around an issue and she has a way of succinctly getting to the issue and putting it on the table. She's willing to say what other people dance around,'' said Jarrett.
Record fundraiser
In 1993, Michelle grabbed an offer to be the founding executive director of the Chicago office of Public Allies, part of President Bill Clinton's AmeriCorps effort.
The position brought her closer to the community work she longed for; it meant helping promising young people enter public service. Public Allies found them, trained them and matched them up with internships -- all of which Michelle had to organize.
She created an office, a board of directors and a pot of money from scratch, setting a "template'' for 11 offices that would follow, said Paul Schmitz, national Public Allies CEO.
Displaying fundraising and strategizing skills, Michelle put together a board of people who could help Public Allies raise money and "left it with about a one-year reserve, which none of our sites since have had. She built it to last,'' Schmitz said.
By 1996, the University of Chicago offered a job as associate dean of students that extended Michelle's work with volunteerism. As director of the University Community Service Center, she located and supported the volunteer work of students.
Hearing of her work, then U. of C. Hospitals president Michael Riordan offered Michelle a job in 2002 as the hospital's executive director of community affairs, serving as liaison between the institution and its surrounding community of rich and poor.
In "probably the most unique interview I've ever had,'' Riordan said, Michelle brought her younger daughter with her in a "little car-seat carrier.''
Web sites pounce
Two months after Obama's January 2005 swearing-in as U.S. senator, Michelle was promoted to vice president of external affairs and community relations. Tax returns showed her total compensation that year went from $122,000 to $317,000, though hospital officials say some of the latter figure includes a one-time pension payout and a bonus.
By then, among other things, Michelle had expanded a two-person part-time office to a staff of 17, grown the number of volunteers into the hospital from 200 to nearly 1,000, and quadrupled the number of hospital employees who volunteered outside the hospital to 800, officials said.
Even so, some have questioned if Obama's new status triggered Michelle's promotion. Riordan insists the position had been discussed well before Obama became U.S. senator.
"I wanted to send a strong message to our community that I was committed to it, so I wanted to make this a vice presidential position,'' Riordan said.
"Michelle is the real deal and . . . really earned every bit of her promotion on her own."
Web sites and Crain's Chicago Business have noted Michelle's June 2005 election to the board of directors of TreeHouse Foods -- a post that earned her $45,000 in 2005 and stock options that by the end of 2006, if claimed, would have reaped her $60,000.
"She got on the corporate board of someplace where she could make money, and make money quickly,'' said political consultant Joe Novak, who operates a Web site that has criticized Michelle's new TreeHouse role.
"She's cashing in because of her husband.''
Michelle was on the TreeHouse board in November 2005, when one of its divisions announced plans to close its pickle and relish plant in La Junta, Colo., displacing 150 "mainly Hispanic'' workers, Novak said. A year later, her husband criticized Wal-Mart's treatment of its workers.
"How can she defend TreeHouse while her husband is attacking Wal-Mart?'' Novak said.
Obama spokesman Julian Green, in a prepared statement, said Michelle applied for the TreeHouse job after a family friend who consults for companies seeking to increase the minorities on their boards alerted her to the opening. The friend thought Michelle would be an excellent candidate for a corporate board, given her experience in both the public and private sectors, Green said.
"Michelle has performed her duties diligently and her compensation is commensurate with the company's other board members,'' Green's statement said. She's proud of her service on several boards, including Facing History and Ourselves, Muntu Dance Theatre and Sprague Memorial Institute, Green said.
Some people sweat under the floodlights, but Michelle's background as a lawyer, community liaison, fundraiser and strategist should come in handy if her husband runs for president.
The toughest part may be juggling the demands of a campaign with work, marriage and motherhood -- something Michelle has been able to do so far, in part due to babysitting and other help from her mother and close female friends.
Whatever happens, Michelle will find a way to make it all work, said Craig Robinson.
"There's nothing too hard for her to do,'' he said.
(http://www.suntimes.com/news/metro/221458,CST-NWS-mich21.article) |
Abm
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Abm
Post Number: 8035
Registered: 04-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, January 23, 2007 - 03:39 pm: |
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Tonya,
Looks like Baraka did pretty dayam GOOD for himself when he hitched up with Michelle. |
Cynique
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 6917
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, January 23, 2007 - 03:51 pm: |
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Wonder how Michelle Obama would fare, if she started posting on this board. Her husband might find what goes on in these discussions verrrrrrrrry interesting, even if Michelle adopted an igbogal persona. |
Tonya
AALBC .com Platinum Poster
Username: Tonya
Post Number: 4160
Registered: 07-2006
Rating: 
Votes: 1 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, January 23, 2007 - 04:22 pm: |
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I agree ABM 100%. And, hey, Michelle did pretty dayam good for herself, as well. He's no dummy, neither---and they are BOTH very good looking people.
      |
Kola_boof
AALBC .com Platinum Poster
Username: Kola_boof
Post Number: 4318
Registered: 02-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, January 23, 2007 - 04:40 pm: |
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Cynique,
Barack Obama identifies MORE WITH ME...than
with you.
And that's a major fact.
|
Mzuri
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Mzuri
Post Number: 3159
Registered: 01-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, January 23, 2007 - 04:53 pm: |
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And he told you this???
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Abm
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Abm
Post Number: 8041
Registered: 04-2004
Rating:
Votes: 1 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, January 23, 2007 - 04:55 pm: |
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It's very interesting seeing them together. Because the TRUTH is you very SELDOM is a Black couple in the limelight where the woman is decidedly darkerskinned than her husband. |
Kola_boof
AALBC .com Platinum Poster
Username: Kola_boof
Post Number: 4323
Registered: 02-2005
Rating:
Votes: 1 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, January 23, 2007 - 05:21 pm: |
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Exactly ABM, but nobody notices that.
Or cares.
Yet they LOVE Black people and LOVE
claiming to be Black.
How can you hate the mother of our
race--not notice she's missing---and
yet be so damned proud?
To a "dark skinned" black woman, it's
downright SHOCKING to sit through BET.
But nobody thinks about that, because
you're not black women.
And that's what's at the core of MUCH of
my bitching.
If we don't even want our mother to exist
---then how long will WE?
|
Abm
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Abm
Post Number: 8045
Registered: 04-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, January 23, 2007 - 05:41 pm: |
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Kola,
There's NOTHING wrong with how they look. They're both lovely people. But I admit you so seldom see a couple who look like the Obamas that the first few times I saw pictures of them together it was a bit jarring. |
Cynique
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 6918
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: 
Votes: 6 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, January 23, 2007 - 07:04 pm: |
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Oh shut up kola, with all of your tiresome preaching. How do you figure Obama would identify with a hate-spewing, color-obsessed, divisive, lying, loose cannon like you? And don't even compare me with yourself. I don't have a problem with dark people, but you have a problem with light people because you envy them. Or do I care what Obama's very accomplished wife's color is, unlike you and the rest of the color police who never focus on anything else. |
Ntfs_encryption
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Ntfs_encryption
Post Number: 1599
Registered: 10-2005
Rating:
Votes: 1 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 24, 2007 - 04:54 am: |
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I think they make a very attractive couple. This sister is sharp and very accomplished. He definitely picked a winner. |
Chrishayden
AALBC .com Platinum Poster
Username: Chrishayden
Post Number: 3443
Registered: 03-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 24, 2007 - 01:30 pm: |
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--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It's very interesting seeing them together. Because the TRUTH is you very SELDOM is a Black couple in the limelight where the woman is decidedly darkerskinned than her husband
In this particular case that doesn't apply.
Rarely do you see politicians with their wives--for one thing its all about them and the wife will take some of the limelight.
For another it is very risky. He might get spat on shot, pelted with rotten fruit, booed--
You don't put your wife through that.
The politician in public is at work.
How often do you take your wife to work? |
Yukio
Veteran Poster
Username: Yukio
Post Number: 1682
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 24, 2007 - 02:35 pm: |
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To a "dark skinned" black woman, it's
downright SHOCKING to sit through BET.
But nobody thinks about that, because
you're not black women.
I hate to say this, but it probably best that "dark skinned" black women are missing from BET. Although work is work, the majority of black women, or women in general, on BET are video girls...I could use street vernacular to describe them but I wont. One of the reasons why we dont see the beautiful Angela Basset, besides hollywood colorism, in alot of films is because she refuses to play roles not redeemable to the representation of black woman. |
Chrishayden
AALBC .com Platinum Poster
Username: Chrishayden
Post Number: 3446
Registered: 03-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 24, 2007 - 03:34 pm: |
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Yeah, like somebody said on another thread black folks don't own BET so they have no control over what's on there. |
Abm
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Abm
Post Number: 8075
Registered: 04-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 24, 2007 - 03:53 pm: |
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Chris,
Most politicians I've observed skillful use their spouses to HELP them get elected. They don't hide them. |
Chrishayden
AALBC .com Platinum Poster
Username: Chrishayden
Post Number: 3452
Registered: 03-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 24, 2007 - 04:48 pm: |
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Abm:
So when is the last time you saw Ted Kennedy's wife? Did Bush have his wife standing next to him when he gave the speech last night? How about Amenijad? Does he have his wife up there? Tony Blair. Have you ever seen his wife? I can go on and on but I guess the Mayor of Metropolis had his wife with him in the last Superman and you can't get it out of your head. |
Abm
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Abm
Post Number: 8084
Registered: 04-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 24, 2007 - 04:55 pm: |
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Chris,
Does Teddy still HAVE a wife? I thought he divorced her a decade or so ago. 'Sides. Teddy's already too deeply entrenched in government for him too need a wife to help him get reelected.
But wives figure prominently in helping to sell politicians to people who do NOT already know them. So while Bush doesn't need Laura to BE president he sure as hell needed her (or someone like her) to BECOME president.
Chris: "I guess the Mayor of Metropolis had his wife with him in the last Superman and you can't get it out of your head."
You're such a frickin' nerd.
Hahahahahaha!!!! |
Cynique
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 6940
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 24, 2007 - 06:01 pm: |
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Actually from what I recall after seeing Barka and his wife together on Oprah's show, there is not that big of a contrast in their colors. Barak is not high yellow and Michelle is light brown. Teddy Kennedy re-married years ago and his current wife is a lot more of an asset than was his first wife, Joan, whose alcoholism gave rise to erratic behavior. Candidate John Edwards wife is a plus-sized woman but, like Barak's wife, has an impressive academic pedigree. A candidate's wife may be good for photo-ops, but whether his wife is an asset or a liability on the campaign trail is probably decided by his advisors. |
Mzuri
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Mzuri
Post Number: 3203
Registered: 01-2006
Rating: 
Votes: 1 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 24, 2007 - 06:07 pm: |
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Candidates wives can definitely be a liability. John Kerry's wife is a perfect example of that. If he would have had someone different, he may have had a better chance of getting elected.
|
Tonya
AALBC .com Platinum Poster
Username: Tonya
Post Number: 4167
Registered: 07-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 24, 2007 - 08:18 pm: |
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We don't know if John Edwards' wife isn't going to be a liability, yet. Her size could very well become an ADDED BURDEN to John Edwards’ lifeless, lackluster image, unfortunately.
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Abm
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Abm
Post Number: 8096
Registered: 04-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 24, 2007 - 11:41 pm: |
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Tonya,
Mark my words: John Edwards wife ELIZABETH might be the smartest, most clear thinking and articulate person you might ever see presented during the presidential campaign. And I suspect, if given the chance, she'd prove to be EVERYTHING that Hillary Clinton and Condelessa Rice have (often FALSELY) been given credit for being.
Honestly. If John could communicate as well as Elizabeth can, Hillary and Barak would be in trouble.
She might not LOOK like some want her to look. But when you see and hear Elizabeth SPEAK, you'll be thinking diff'rent.
Trust me! |
Tonya
AALBC .com Platinum Poster
Username: Tonya
Post Number: 4170
Registered: 07-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, January 25, 2007 - 01:22 am: |
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ABM, it's not what *I* think. Her weight means nothing to me. It's America that I'm worried about. I have no faith in this "nip, tuck" obsessed nation. They expect every woman that they see on TV to be a certain size, even in politics. I’m just going by reality. I’m in no way putting Mrs. Edwards down. Infact, I see nothing wrong with her appearance. She looks like most women her age. |
Abm
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Abm
Post Number: 8106
Registered: 04-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, January 25, 2007 - 10:30 am: |
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Tonya,
Point taken. Though I do think if Edwards wants to have a serious shot at getting elected, he'll allow his wife as much media time as possible.
Because we've entered an epoch (e.g., terrorism, Iraq War, Global Warming, etc.) where foks had better begin to look askance at how foks appear and look TOWARD what foks are capable of DOING.
That, of course, assumes we hope to continue to survive. |
Cynique
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 6949
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, January 25, 2007 - 01:12 pm: |
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I think you put your finger on it, Tonya, when you said John Edward's wife looks like a typical women of her age. She's actually somebody the average women can identify with, rather than admire from a distance. And, in additon to being personable and intelligent, she is also a recent breast cancer survivor, and has experienced the heartbreak of losing a teenaged son in a car accident. IMO, she's not a liability. |
Tonya
AALBC .com Platinum Poster
Username: Tonya
Post Number: 4189
Registered: 07-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, January 25, 2007 - 04:13 pm: |
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I would LOVE to believe you guys. But my faith in the American public on this issue (and similar issues) just won't allow me.
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Cynique
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 6957
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, January 25, 2007 - 05:33 pm: |
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Well, Tonya, the presidential campaign isn't the Oscar race, and considering how middle American tends to be turned off by any kind of Hollywood glamour infusing itself into the political arena, I can fathom that Edwards' wife would not be a liability. After all, she is not unattractive; just pleasing plump and actually doesn't look any worse than Hillary. |
Tonya
AALBC .com Platinum Poster
Username: Tonya
Post Number: 4239
Registered: 07-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, January 27, 2007 - 11:56 pm: |
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Cynique,
we’ll just have to see, I pray that I'm wrong though! |
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