What are your reactions to Michelle Obama’s speech at the 2008 Democratic National Convention, and what role does she play in the campaign?

“I think she had one major task and that was to introduce Barack Obama as a person, and also I think she tried to hit on a lot of themes of the campaign such as hope. She talked about some of the things people have been criticizing him, but [had] not been specific about, and gave some meat to those ideas. She also emphasized how proud she was to be an American. Her role is to continue to speak about Barack Obama as a person and to make people relate to her. She kept talking about working class people and making that connection with her story because he’s having trouble having working class people identify with him.”

– Barbara Burrell

professor of political science and faculty associate in the Women’s Studies Program

“I think it was a really good job of being inclusive of the delegates that are very obviously there. There are clearly a lot of Hillary delegates there and she mentioned Hillary in a very positive way. I think she plays a really big part. I see a lot of similarities between her and Hillary when Bill was running. She’s definitely not there to look pretty and say nice things. It appears she’s had some pretty powerful input into the campaign so far. It’s kind of an interesting comparison between her and Hillary.”

– Jill Dunlap

director of the Women’s Resource Center

“I thought it was extraordinary and really unprecedented in my lifetime. I’ve been watching conventions for almost 50 years and it’s hard to imagine the spouse of any other candidate having the ability to be so articulate and so effective in making such an important speech. I think she needed to explain herself and her husband to potential voters, who I think have been confused about their backgrounds, and I thought she did that effectively by offering personal histories of her family life and I think certainly it was well received by the Democrats at the convention. And my guess is that even the staunch Hillary Clinton supporters had to be affected by that speech. I think any independents watching would be moved by that speech because she just did a good job of letting us know something about them as real-life human beings. She seemed like a real person who many people could identify with. My guess is she will continue to play a very important part. She’s shown herself to be a very capable campaigner. If it’s as well received as I think, it may be she will be a very valuable asset to the campaign.”

– Mikel Wyckoff

associate professor of political science