James Q. Lynch, CR Gazette –
IOWA CITY — After the campaign is over next week, first lady Michelle Obama said, she and her husband “will go back to normal where I tell him to pick up his shoes.”
But until then, there’s work to do — even in Iowa, where President Barack Obama’s campaign for the White House was launched.
In the next eight days, Obama said at an Iowa City rally Monday, the next four years are on the line.
“All the progress, it’s all on the line, all at stake,” she told a crowd security estimated at 800 people.
All indications are that the election will be close, “and it could come down to what happens in a few key battleground states like right here in Iowa,” the first lady said in her 40-minute speech.
That’s the way it feels to George and Wendy Hagen, who said they volunteer for the Obama campaign. The Davenport couple were well aware of the campaign’s intensity: Republican Mitt Romney was campaigning in their own community Monday.
“That’s why we’re here,” Wendy Hagen said.
Iowans have plenty of good reasons to vote for four more years, Obama said. Among her husband’s accomplishments, she said, are health care reform, ending the war in Iraq and taking out Osama bin Laden, making sure veterans get the benefits they earn, protecting young immigrants from deportation and removing the barriers to gays and lesbians serving openly in the military.
And when it comes to understanding what’s important to women, “you know that Barack will always have your back. Always,” his wife said. “That’s why he will to make sure that we as women can make our own decisions about our bodies.”
But in a prebuttal to the first lady’s visit in Coralville on Monday, Iowa Republican Lt. Gov. Kim Reynolds said the Obama administration’s decisions have hurt women.
Since Obama took office, Reynolds said, nearly 400,000 women have lost their jobs and 5.5 million are unemployed. Also, the poverty rate among women has increased to 16.3 percent — the highest it’s been in 17 years.
“We deserve better,” Reynolds said, and a Romney administration “will make sure we have jobs, that we create an economy where women can find a job, can raise their standard of living.”
Much of the first lady’s remarks were personal as she talked about what made her fall in love with her husband. It was his character, she said.
“That decency, that honesty, that compassion and conviction that we’ve come to know,” she said.
The president has always been committed to helping others, she said, and that’s why he wants another four years.
“We are steadily moving this country forward and making real and meaningful change,” she said. “But my husband is nowhere near satisfied, there are too many still hurting.
“So here’s the question we have to ask ourselves: Are we going to turn around to the same policies that got us in this problem?”
So, she said, “for the next eight days and next four years we will not turn back. We have come so far, but we have so much more work to do. Let’s get it done.”
Carol Spaziami of Iowa City hopes that a second term is just the beginning for Michelle Obama.
“When she’s done being the ‘little woman,’ I hope she goes out and does something great,” Spaziami said, who was a Hillary Clinton fan, too. A feminist, she came to see the first lady in person “and to hear her — she’s so rational. It makes me feel good as a woman.”
Every race should celebrate its diversity. It seems to me that the only actual part you used of Mrs. Obama’s thesis was this:
I hoped that these findings would help me conclude that despite
the high degree of identification with whites as a result of the
educational and occupational path that black Princeton alumni follow,
the alumni would still maintain a certain level of identification with
the black community. However, these findings do not support this
possibility.
All this is saying that the majority of black Princeton alumni don’t identify with the black community. That is unfortunate because if more of the rich, upper class blacks would identify with the community then maybe there might be more done to improve the educational opportunities that aren’t available to many who live in poverty.
You are trying to use scare tactics to influence people. Not nice.
My comment was in response to ‘as seen from here’
There is no fixing someone who doesn’t want to listen.
Yeah….”making sure veterans get the benefits they earn,” Uh huh, sure. Remember this is the same president that thought it might be a good idea for our servicemen & women to pay for their own insurance too.
Matt-why was my post on this article deleted from this morning?
Sorry-wrong article. Please disregard.
@LVS – it was probably deleted by mistake. I’ll see if I can find it and get it restored. Sorry about that.
Hey Iowans, get the corn cobs outa your heads!
Subj: Thesis – Michele Obama aka Michelle LaVaughn Robinson
OBAMA’S MILITANT RACISM REVEALED
In her senior thesis at Princeton, Michele Obama, the wife of Barack
Obama stated that America was a nation founded on ‘crime and hatred.
Moreover, she stated that whites in America were ineradicably racist.
The 1985 thesis, titled Princeton-Educated Blacks and the Black
Community was written under her maiden name, Michelle LaVaughn
Robinson.
Michelle Obama stated in her thesis that to Whites at Princeton , it
often seems as if, to them, she will always be Black first… However,
it was reported by a fellow black classmate, If those Whites at
Princeton really saw Michelle as one who always would be Black
first, it seems that she gave them that impression.
Most alarming is Michele Obama’s use of the terms separationist and
integrationist when describing the views of black people.
Mrs. Obama clearly identifies herself with a separationist view of
race.
By actually working with the Black lower class or within their
communities as a result of their ideologies, a separationist may better
understand the desperation of their situation and feel more hopeless
about a resolutionas opposed to an integrationist who is ignorant to
their plight.
Obama writes that the path she chose by attending Princeton would likely lead to her further integration and/or assimilation into a white
cultural and social structure that will only allow me to remain on the
periphery of society; never becoming a full participant.
Michele Obama clearly has a chip on her shoulder.
Not only does she see separate black and white societies in America ,
but she elevates black over white in her world.
Here is another passage that is uncomfortable and ominous in meaning:
There was no doubt in my mind that as a member of the black community, I am obligated to this community and will utilize all of my present and future resources to benefit the black
community first and foremost
What is Michelle Obama planning to do with her future resources if she as first lady that will elevate black over white in America ?
The following passage appears to be a call to arms for affirmative
action policies that could be the hallmark of an Obama administration.
Predominately white universities like Princeton are socially and
academically designed to cater to the needs of the white students
comprising the bulk of their enrollments.
The conclusion of her thesis is alarming.
Michelle Obama’s poll of black alumni concludes that other black
students at Princeton do not share her obsession with blackness. But
rather than celebrate, she is horrified that black alumni identify with
our common American culture more than they value the color of their
skin. I hoped that these findings would help me conclude that despite
the high degree of identification with whites as a result of the
educational and occupational path that black Princeton alumni follow,
the alumni would still maintain a certain level of identification with
the black community. However, these findings do not support this
possibility.
Is it no wonder that most black alumni ignored her racist questionnaire? Only 89 students responded out of 400 who were asked for input. Michelle Obama does not look into a crowd of Obama supporters and see Americans. She sees black people and white people eternally conflicted with one another.
The thesis provides a trove of Mrs. Obama’s thoughts and world
view seen through a race-based prism.
This is a very divisive view for a potential first lady that would do
untold damage to race relations in this country in a Barack Obama
administration.
Michelle Obama’s intellectually refined racism should give all Americans pause for deep concern.
Now maybe she’s changed, but she sure sounds like someone with an axe to grind with America. Will the press let Michelle get a free pass over her obviously racist comment about American whites? I am sure that it will.
As presented to you by the “copy and paste” mentality of this blogger. What a waste of time.
Please, how about an original thought? BTW I’m a registered Republican.
That’s freedom of speech.
you’re a ragin angry liberal dumocrat and it shows. guess how we all know.
Closet liberal ya mean with no mentality!
Closet liberal, ya mean with, no mentality! Or a liar.