Michelle Obama takes centre stage

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Jun 22 2008, 20:04 IST

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Barack Obama’s decision to move his campaign headquarters to Chicago suggests a redesigned, tightened-up election effort aimed at Grand Old Party (GOP) nominee John McCain, with no bitter aftertaste from the Democratic primaries. It will be quite a change, for better or worse.There was a major television roll-out of a supposed new image for Michelle Obama, who shapes up as a controversial, hot GOP target for her goofy remarks about America’s presumed shortcomings. The public relations stunt didn’t work very well: Michelle Obama seemingly called her husband “pathetic” on The View on ABC, not exactly the adoring wife model voters prefer. She quickly insisted that she had called him “empathetic”. To her credit she is, pardon the comparison, a little too independent and outspoken in the mould of Hillary Clinton to be palmed off as another Laura Bush. The current first lady is popular mostly because she’s just a ghostly presence who stands by the president’s side and shows up in pretty clothes. She has kept her thoughts to herself and her mouth shut during most of the White House years. Only recently has she discovered trouble spots in the world, such as Burma, but all she provides is soothing words that international power brokers can feel free to ignore. By contrast, Michelle Obama is adroit at displays of outrage. But campaigning for her husband makes Michelle Obama fair game. Ironically, he expects to get some of that financial help from Hillary Clinton’s supporters, whom he thinks will be more

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