Organizing for America | Jaime Mulligan's Blog: Road to Change: Michelle Obama in Ames--"Are we ready to move beyond convention?"

Road to Change: Michelle Obama in Ames--"Are we ready to move beyond convention?"

By Jaime Mulligan - Aug 17th, 2007 at 6:36 pm EDT

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Ames field organizer Joe Cupka kicked things off by talking about a Women's Equality Day event coming up, our text messaging program, and a Students for Obama organizational meeting.

Michelle then spoke about getting to know Barack.

When I first met him, he was this hotshot Harvard law student...And I thought, this guy can't be all that. And I made assumptions, like a lot of people do. I made assumptions like we do in America about people...As his advisor I had to take him out to lunch on that first day---which was good because I had to talk to him, I had to actually get to know him, and I learned that we actually had a lot in common...that integrity matters in this world, that there's nothing more important in life than your family and your community...

Michelle stressed Barack's consistency in making decisions that put principle over power, pointing out that with his experiences and his blessings he could have done anything, gone anywhere, taken any high-paying job, but in every situation, his values dictated that he choose a different path.

For example, after serving as the president of the Harvard Law Review, a position that basically guarantees a Supreme Court clerkship, Barack chose to come back to Chicago and work on voter registration projects, work for a small civil rights firm, and teach constitutional law.

He made those decisions because he didn’t go to law school to gain power, prestige or influence; he went to learn how to use the law to help solve the problems he had seen during his community organizing days.

Michelle also spoke about Barack’s experience in the Ilinois state legislature in building bridges across the aisle to solve problems and about his U.S. Senate race – which was not a cakewalk when he decided to join the race. She said:

When people tell you Barack Obama is not experienced enough to be in the race, that's the political game speaking. Are we ready to move beyond convention? It's a leap of faith that we can move away from the things that haven't worked but have felt secure to us.

What do you think about Barack’s ability to bring Republicans and Democrats together to actually start addressing some of the major issues we face? Tell us in the comments.

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