Where's Michelle Obama?

I’m beginning to get worried about Michelle Obama. Lately she’s been harder to find than a profit in the stock market. She surfaced briefly at the debates but was long gone by the morning chat shows. It’s not that she isn’t an attractive, charismatic person in her own right. She’s got every bit the academic resume her husband has and is a double minority as a woman. Early on she was at Barack’s side at every turn. They were the black Jack and Jackie. Then poof, she was gone from America’s living room.
The poof did happen to coincide with a few statements which were construed as being less than proud of America and indicating something of a racial chip on her shoulder. The conservative publication National Review went as far as putting a very annoyed looking Mrs. Obama on its cover with the tag line “The First Lady of Grievance.” The right wing blogs also ran with her quote about her husband’s success as the first time she had ever been proud to be an American.
All of a sudden we had an angry resentful black woman on our hands. Whether there is any basis in fact in those observations is irrelevant politically. Appearance is everything in politics and if people think Michelle Obama has issues, it’s time to get her off the stage and they have. Because in my opinion, one of the explanations for Sen. Obama’s meteoric political ascendancy has been the fact he is not seen as threatening by most white people.
If he harbors any resentment or has suffered any indignities as a black man in America, it doesn’t come across. Most reasonable people I know see him as a cerebral young liberal with an engaging manner. As someone who came of age long after the ugly days of segregation and strife, Obama is unencumbered by the anger and resentment personified by race baiters like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton.
As we approach the end of the 2008 campaign, it is increasingly clear the only person capable of beating Barack Obama is Barack Obama. John McCain has devolved into a Yosemite Sam like caricature saddled with the almost comical Sarah Palin riding shotgun on the road to nowhere. As evidenced by the repeated attempts by both McCain and his surrogates to flog the remains of Rev. Wright and convicted terrorist Bill Ayres, Republicans think painting Obama as an angry black man who hangs out with terrorists is their last real hope of halting the electoral avalanche coming their way.
While I find it troubling Mr. and Mrs. Obama could sit through the hateful, irrational tirades of Rev. Wright or socialize with a lefty nut job like Bill Ayres and his terrorist wife, it doesn’t an election make. McCain has been an inconsistent, almost incoherent candidate and looks like the old guy who used to chase me off his lawn if I hit a baseball on it. Like Bob Dole in ’96, McCain looks like he’s lost his fastball and will shortly be joining Dole as an elder statesman and political footnote.
Meanwhile, Michelle Obama will continue her tour of the hinterlands, far away from the prying eyes and ears of the national media. But I’ll bet we see and hear lots from her after November 4th.