Winston-Salem, North Carolina: The two women, once adversaries, embraced like best friends, calling each other “inspiring” and “amazing” and “my girl”.
They clasped hands and worked a stage surrounded by more than 10,000 roaring supporters, waving and pressing the flesh as a team. Their past rivalry appeared all but forgotten, or at least overshadowed by the stakes of a presidential race.
In their first joint campaign appearance on Thursday, Michelle Obama and Hillary Clinton made a public show of sisterhood and mutual admiration as the current First Lady, a star on the campaign trail, sought to use her soaring popularity to boost the former First Lady into the Oval Office.
“There are some folks out there who are commenting that it is unprecedented for a sitting First Lady to be so actively engaged in a presidential campaign, and that may be true,” said Obama, a reluctant campaigner who has nevertheless emerged in recent weeks as Clinton’s most compelling surrogate.
“But what is also true is that this is truly an unprecedented election, and that’s why I’m out here,” Obama added, arguing that Donald Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, was working to discourage people in the crowd from voting by making “this election so dirty and ugly that we don’t want any part of it.”
Clinton’s campaign has deployed Obama extensively over the past several weeks in competitive states such as North Carolina, working to capitalise on her reputation to stoke enthusiasm and turnout particularly among women, African-Americans and young people. Her approval rating in August was 64 per cent, more than 10 points better than President Barack Obama’s, according to a Gallup tracking poll at the time. Clinton’s current approval rating is 43 per cent.
The contrast between the two women could not be sharper, although both are Ivy League-educated lawyers who lived through two terms as First Lady, a role freighted with expectations, riddled with pitfalls and devoid of real power. The two bonded on Thursday over the shared experience, not always pleasant.
“I’m going to state the obvious: It’s not easy, you’ve got so many people counting on you, you’ve got the eyes of the world on you,” Clinton said. “Let’s be real — as our nation’s first African-American First Lady, she’s faced pressures I never did, and she’s handled them with pure grace.”
Obama has used her popularity to prosecute a case against Trump. She began in New Hampshire this month when she spoke in personal terms about the toll his campaign rhetoric has taken on her and women across the country. “Enough is enough,” she said.
Their pairing on Thursday made for a tableau impossible to imagine eight years ago when Barack Obama was engaged in a battle with Clinton for the Democratic nomination. But on Thursday in the centre of a large arena, the first African-American First Lady stood beside the former First Lady who is seeking to break yet another historic barrier by becoming the first woman to be president, making common cause against Trump.
“It doesn’t get any better than being here with our most amazing First Lady,” Clinton told a packed hall at Wake Forest University. Comparing Obama to the author and poet Maya Angelou, Clinton called her “another woman whose voice we need now more than ever.”
‘Dignity at stake’
“I wish I didn’t have to say this, but indeed, dignity and respect for women and girls is also on the ballot in this election,” Clinton said, “and I want to thank our first lady for her eloquent, powerful defence of that basic value.”
Starting with a prime-time speech at the Democratic National Convention in July, Obama — who has done little to hide her distaste for campaign politics — has become an invaluable asset for Clinton. Her phrase denouncing the personal attacks of the campaign — “When they go low, we go high” — has turned into a favourite call-and-response that her audiences recite rapturously, similar to Barack Obama’s “Fired up? Ready to go!” chant in his 2008 campaign.
“Casting our vote is the ultimate way that we go high when they go low,” Obama said again Thursday.
As the First Lady has become a louder voice in the campaign, Trump has tried to call attention to the friction that once existed between Obama and Clinton. One of his tactics has been to resurrect an eight-year-old comment the First Lady made during the 2008 primaries.
“Our view was that if you can’t run your own house,” Obama said at the time, “you certainly can’t run the White House.” The remark was interpreted by some as a veiled dig at Clinton that was meant to refer to Bill Clinton’s sexual indiscretions. The Obamas insisted then that it was a comment about their own family, seeking to explain how they balanced politics with the raising of their daughters.
“So we’ve adjusted our schedules to make sure that our girls are first,” Michelle Obama immediately added.
Still, Trump called attention to the statement on Sunday in a posting on Twitter, and his supporters have raised it each time Obama praises Clinton.
On Thursday, both women sought to make it clear they were allies.
“Seriously, is there anybody more inspiring than Michelle Obama?” Clinton said.
Obama said she had been caught off guard by Clinton’s effusive, 23-minute introduction.
