\n<\/p>\n
She was always a straight shooter about the imbalance in relationships. In 2004, when her husband was in the race for the US Senate, she told the Chicago Tribune:<\/em> \u201cWhat I notice about men, all men, is that their order is me, my family, God is in there somewhere, but me is first. And for women, me is fourth, and that\u2019s not healthy.\u201d<\/p>\n Michele Norris reminded me of a 2007 Maureen Dowd New York Times<\/em> column, \u201cShe\u2019s Not Buttering Him Up<\/a>,\u201d that criticized Michelle Obama for ways that she tried to humanize her husband during their first presidential campaign. Dowd found fault with what she said at a fundraiser in New York when she teased her husband for not \u201cputting his socks actually in the dirty clothes.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThis princess of South Chicago,\u201d Dowd wrote, \u201ca formidable Princeton and Harvard Law School grad, wants us to know that she\u2019s not polishing the pedestal.\u201d That kind of hypercriticism is why, according to Norris, she had to be \u201csuperhuman\u201d when she was first lady. Now, as a former first lady, she bends over backward to say she\u2019s just like you.<\/p>\n Her straight talk is not surprising to the people who know her well. She has a famously close and loyal circle of female friends who keep her grounded. They include Jarrett and Norris, whose husband, Broderick Johnson, was assistant to the president and secretary of the cabinet under President Obama. She is also close with Chicago turned DC friend Kelly Dibble, and to the poet Elizabeth Alexander.<\/p>\n Obama talked candidly about race before she became first lady. She told 60 Minutes<\/em> in 2007, when her husband was a presidential candidate: \u201cAs a Black man, you know, Barack can get shot going to the gas station.\u201d<\/p>\n She admires the way Laura Bush approached being first lady with quiet restraint. But that was never really who Bush was, either. \u201cAfter nearly eight years of hypervigilance, of watching for the next danger or tragedy that might be coming, I could at last exhale; I could simply be,\u201d the former first lady wrote in her memoir, Spoken From the Heart<\/em><\/a>, about the relief she felt leaving the White House. Obama could relate.<\/p>\n During debt ceiling<\/strong> negotiations last summer, a source says, Obama and Biden commiserated about the Groundhog Day nature of the battle. (Obama faced a similar crisis in 2011.) The phone conversation may have also allowed Obama to check on the octogenarian president. That day Biden had taken an embarrassing fall when he tripped on a sandbag onstage at the Air Force Academy commencement. Biden was going to need Obama to attest to his fitness for the office. Now, more than ever, \u201cyou need to strike at the right time for key surrogates to be useful,\u201d a Biden aide told me, before the debate. \u201cYou don\u2019t want to waste them, and a year is a lifetime in politics times five.\u201d<\/p>\n Eric Lesser started working on Obama\u2019s 2008 campaign before he graduated from college and went on to work as a West Wing aide. But he couldn\u2019t win the Democratic nomination to be lieutenant governor of Massachusetts in 2022, even after scoring a photo op with the former president at the Obamas\u2019 home in Martha\u2019s Vineyard. Still, Lesser, who served four terms in the state Senate, says he believes that the Obamas\u2019 combined star power is unmatched.<\/p>\n \u201c[George W.] Bush left with his tail between his legs with a massive economic crisis and two disastrous wars,\u201d he says. \u201cBy contrast there is an immense reservoir of goodwill for the Obamas. I was in barbershops and VFW halls and Fourth of July parades across the communities I campaigned in and visited, and over a long period of time\u2014eight years\u2014it was clear the admiration people have for him. And it\u2019s transcended party identification. I had Republicans who admired how he raised his family and the character and the dignity that he brought to the office.\u201d<\/p>\n So many presidential traditions\u2014things that aren\u2019t written in stone but have become quasi-sacred\u2014were trashed the moment Trump stepped into the Oval Office. A fatal breach of the US Capitol, two impeachments, and countless \u201cunprecedented\u201d moments later\u2014including Trump\u2019s conviction on 34 felony charges\u2014and the Obamas are holding firm to the idea that their brand of politics can thrive, even amid Trump\u2019s brand of red-hot fury. \u201cI\u2019m still the hope guy,\u201d Obama has said without a trace of cynicism.<\/p>\n