自考|成考|专升本|高升专|高升本|在职研究生-学历教育网

She used to have a cynical view of politics, she says, because politicians she admired — but won't identify — were "afraid of taking a stand because they don't want to lose their seat or their position."

"I never had doubt about what Barack could offer, and that's what kind of spiraled me out of my own doubt," she says. "I don't want to be the person that holds back a potential answer" to the nation's challenges. She had to overcome concerns that her husband could get "chewed up" by the whole "messy business" of politics, she says.

Obama is learning that being the spouse of a presidential candidate can put her at risk of getting chewed up a bit herself.

Her speeches this week in New Hampshire include references to Sen. Obama's "strange name" and his big ears. She doesn't repeat anecdotes from previous speeches about his inability to make beds or put the butter away after making toast — comments that prompted New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd to write last month that some voters find such teasing "emasculating."

Michelle Obama dismisses such criticism.

"If you're 23 and reading Maureen Dowd's article, you could be crushed. If you're 43, it's sort of like OK, well, she obviously doesn't know who I am, and she doesn't understand," she says. "I get way more affirmation, right? I was in a roomful of hugs today."

Even so, Obama's professional life has resulted in other sorts of scrutiny from the Chicago media, particularly about her finances.

Soon after her husband joined the Senate in 2005, Michelle Obama — who a month earlier had been promoted to her current job — was named to the board of TreeHouse Foods. Wal-Mart is among the company's largest customers. Sen. Obama had been critical of the retail giant's labor practices. Michelle Obama received $51,200 for her board activities in 2006, according to the Obamas' tax return.

The couple's 2006 income was $991,296, including her TreeHouse compensation, investments and royalties from his books. Sen. Obama earned $157,082 in Senate salary last year and his wife earned $273,618 from the University of Chicago Hospitals, his campaign said last month.

She told the Chicago Tribune in April that she's not using her husband's influence "to build my career."

No 'two for one'

Michelle Obama has a résumé packed with accomplishments. But her campaign appearances are not meant to signal that Obama & Obama offer voters "two for the price of one," which is what Bill Clinton told voters they would get in 1992 if he and Hillary Rodham Clinton moved into the White House.

Instead, Michelle Obama's casual, no-notes talks focus on the commitment to perseverance and hard work she learned from her late father — who worked for the Chicago water department even after he was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis — and her mother, who has worked at a bank since raising her two kids.

Obama says her husband shares those values and is "confident without being cocky" and "the real deal." She doesn't talk about race or the prospect that she and her husband would be the first African-American first lady and president.

Obama's openness doesn't extend to discussions about what sort of first lady she would be, what policies she might want to influence or whether she would work outside the White House. "I'm really thinking one foot in front of the other," she says. "What do we have to do today? This week?"

However, she adds that she doesn't envision herself advising her husband directly. Instead, she says, "as individual professionals … you talk about your fears, you talk about your challenges, and you get feedback, and then you go off and make decisions based on what you think is best."

The job of first lady, she says, "depends on the time, it depends on the person, it depends on where they are in their life."

There is little doubt that Hillary Clinton's prominent role in formulating a failed health care reform plan and controversies about her financial dealings hurt her during her husband's presidency, says Myra Gutin, a professor of communications at New Jersey's Rider University and author of the 1989 book The President's Partner: The First Lady in the 20th Century.

After the 1993 inauguration, Hillary Clinton was viewed favorably by 67% of Americans. By July 1994, only 48% rated her favorably.

During the last presidential campaign, half of Americans said in a USA TODAY poll that it's inappropriate for a woman to have a paying job if her husband is president.

Gutin believes that voters are as unsure about what they want in a first lady as Obama is about how she would approach the job.

"I think that there are people who look at Laura Bush and feel that she could use that White House podium to do more," Gutin says. Others prefer "a more ceremonial first lady, one who is not as out front as Hillary Clinton" was.

1505847972	1256358232	1363884583	1902839745	800072298	754854002
中专升大专	中专升本科	高升专	高升本	专升本	自考