First Lady Takes on the Role of Staff Energizer

[babylonsister]

First Lady Takes on the Role of Staff Energizer
By JODI KANTOR
Published: November 17, 2011


Young campaign workers looked up from their pizza at Obama re-election headquarters in Chicago one evening last month to find an unexpected guest: the first lady of the United States, there to deliver a surprise pep talk.

Jewel Samad/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Michelle Obama at an event last month promoting President Obama's jobs legislation. She is increasing her public presence.


Michelle Obama, who often calls herself the mom in chief, is taking on the new role of motivator in chief.

After nearly three years of limiting her time in the public sphere, she is suddenly ubiquitous: headlining seven fund-raisers in October, promoting new initiatives for veterans and her husband’s stalled jobs bill, even appearing at job fairs run by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the business lobbying group that has frequently been a nemesis of her husband’s administration.

If the initial stage of her time as first lady was identified with glamour (magazine covers, a high-flying social secretary) and the second was about advocacy (for child obesity prevention and military families), she is entering a third stage: as an upbeat ambassador for a struggling administration, and more than at any time since the inauguration, a designated narrator of her husband’s story.

At her White House events, she avoids any mention of re-election, to avoid seeming overtly political. And there are no big public campaign events yet, no huge crowds she is rallying to vote. But she is stepping up her private events, with one goal: throwing the considerable force of her personality into rousing deflated, restive fund-raisers and volunteers.

“Her mission is to energize folks and give them encouragement to go out and do the work,” David Axelrod, Mr. Obama’s chief strategist, said in an interview.

more...

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/18/us/politics/michelle-obamas-mission-energizing-the-campaign.html?_r=1

[ensho]

1. kick

nt

[Tarheel_Dem]

2. Kick

:kick:

[and-justice-for-all]

3. Michelle is awesome and will kick some ass...nt