letter to Mrs. Obama
Dear Mrs. Obama,
Lately you’ve been under a firestorm with accusations ranging from the notion that you hate whites to the hand bump that you gave to your husband after he clinched the democratic nomination was a terrorist symbol. The claims are outlandish and expose the Conservative Right’s pitiful attempt to battle against Senator Obama with the rhetoric of fear over insightful ideas. My concern is not over these attacks. I am hoping, perhaps idealistically, that the electorate will choose your husband over the war –failing-economy recessing-status quo candidate. Who I am worried about is you and what your husband’s campaign might try and do to you. My concern was fueled by the following, “As her husband’s general election campaign gets into full swing, Mrs. Obama is getting a subtle makeover,” as quoted in the June 18th front page article of the New York Times.
Mrs. Obama, you don’t need a makeover. Don’t let the political spin doctors force you to soften your tone or change your image. I don’t want to see you basting a turkey for National Guard troops in California or reading “The Cat in the Hat” to 3-year-olds at a day care in Ohio. You are an Ivy League trained lawyer and social activist. If you want to visit Iowa and brainstorm relief plans for Des Moines, that’s fine; if you want to meet with Chicago leaders about the teenage murder epidemic here, please, we need your help; but don’t become some ideal of a potential first lady that is as outdated as Dolly Madison. Don’t let what happen to Hillary Clinton during the 1990s happen to you.
With that said, also don’t forget that you are not being elected to the White House, your husband is. Hillary Clinton became unpopular during her husband’s first term because she took on an inappropriate role as first lady. She took on the role of a legislator, and she wasn’t voted into office. The electorate resented her role, and to some degree rightfully so.
I understand that you have to campaign for him, you have to make appearances, but don’t lose yourself in this journey to the presidency. You need to educate the public on who you are and what you are about. Let us know why you love this country, but don’t mask the struggles you’ve encountered in your own childhood as well as the ones you witnessed attempting to tackle issues surrounding poverty on Chicago’s South Side to fit into the mold of Betty Crocker.
We don’t care how your cookies taste. We want you be who you’ve always been: a charismatic, successful professional, wife and mother. We want you to represent Senator Obama’s views accurately and expansively, and we want you standing next to him when he takes the oath of office in January.
