Michelle Obama: ‘Why on Earth Is This Race Even Close?’
The former first lady speaks directly to men in her first campaign rally with Kamala Harris.
Former First Lady Michelle Obama pleaded with voters, voiced her own fear about the future if presidential candidate Kamala Harris isn’t elected, and urged men to step up their support for the democratic nominee in her first appearance on the campaign trail Saturday with the vice president in Michigan.
To the crowd, Obama said she felt frustrated and angry about the draw former President Donald Trump has given his history as a convicted felon.
“Trump’s criminal record would be embarrassing, shameful and disqualifying,” she said. “I am praying we will snap out of whatever fog we are in…” and “turn the page on the ugliness for once and for all.”
The rally in Kalamazoo was the first appearance the former first lady has made on the campaign trail since the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in August. Obama reminded voters of Harris’s experience and record as a former U.S. attorney general of California, former U.S. senator and the first female vice president while warning Michigan voters not to “buy into the lie that we do not know what Kamala Harris stands for.”
“With all that said, I have to ask, why on Earth is this race even close?” Obama asked impassionately.
“With all that said, I have to ask, why on Earth is this race even close?” Obama asked impassionately.
The former first lady went on to say that the question isn’t if Kamala Harris is ready, but if the nation is ready to elect the first woman president of the United States.
“Are we willing to do what it takes to get her across the finish line?” she said. “Or are we going to let ourselves get distracted and fall for the scam?”
Obama turned her focus to the fight over abortion and described the risks to both women and men if women’s reproductive rights aren’t restored. She braced the “fellas” in the venue to listen as she walked the crowd through the difficult realities for women if they are stripped of quality, accessible healthcare including safe abortions.
She described a woman’s body as “complicated business” that has long been neglected by science and the chilling effects since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. She spoke of the hesitancy of doctors in states with abortion bans who are faced with criminal prosecution while some women’s lives hang in the balance needing urgent gynecological care.
But, she said, these matters don’t single out women.
“You will be the one praying that it’s not too late,” the former first lady said to men. “You might be the one left to raise your children alone … every second of hesitation can lead to devastating outcomes. Take our lives seriously. Please do not put our lives in the hands of politicians, mostly men.”
Obama is scheduled to headline a rally on Tuesday in Atlanta.