Michelle Obama: August 2008 Archives

DENVER--Oprah Winfrey, at Barack Obama's acceptance speech,said, "I've never experienced anything like that," she said. "I think it was anything anyone could ever expect."

On the dash through the inner bowels of Invesco field, the pool passed by Oprah Winfrey and her entourage, and the queen of daytime talk stopped to answer questions. She looked stunned and emotional, as if the day had overwhelmed her.

DENVER--Michelle Obama tells CBS hours before Barack's acceptance speech,"I know that this speech will be from Barack's heart."

DENVER--The Obama campaign on Tuesday already sent out a fund-raising appeal asking for money with the pitch....Michelle gave a great speech last night.

DENVER--Transcript of Michelle Obama Democratic convention speech. She was introduced by her brother, Craig Robinson. Transcript courtesy Federal News Service.

MR. ROBINSON: Good evening. I'm Craig Robinson, and Michelle Obama is my little sister.

Tonight, I want to introduce you to my sister: the girl I grew up with; the poised young woman I saw her grow into; the compassionate mother, aunt and sister-in-law she is; the passionate voice for women and children she has become; and the type of first lady she will be.

(photos by Lynn Sweet)

DENVER--Michelle Obama on Monday night answered critics who doubted her patriotism because she said last February that with Barack Obama's change campaign, for the first time she is "really proud" of her country. In her speech tonight, she declared, "And this is why I love my country."

(Photos by Lynn Sweet)

Illinois delegates will have the best seats in the Pepsi Center, in front of the podium.
(Photos by Lynn Sweet)

Bloomberg News just published a tour de Force on Penny Pritzker--the Chicago billionaire and member of one of richest families in the world--and the Obama's campaign finance chair. She's also the sister of Chicago business man and Democratic activist J.B Pritzker--a leading Clinton supporter.

excerpt....
Pritzker is also helping to preside over an uneasy truce that will sell off some of the family companies and dismantle its empire. The breakup will give her and 10 siblings and cousins at least $1.35 billion apiece, according to court documents.

WASHINGTON -- When Alexi Giannoulias was an undergraduate at the University of Chicago in the mid-1990s, one of the guys he would play pick-up basketball games with in Hyde Park was Barack Obama, who taught at the U. of C. law school.

Now Giannoulias is the Illinois state treasurer and Obama is the presumptive Democratic nominee. Obama has been "like a mentor to me," Giannoulias told me. He will be one of the parade of Chicagoans who will speak at the Democratic convention Monday night, when Obama's family and friends tell the story of Obama's life.

Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-Ill.) has a unique place in the Barack Obama story. He's a personal friend--one of his sisters sang at Barack and Michelle's wedding--a political ally--they come out of the complex political mix of Chicago's South Side-and he's a national co-chair of the presidential campaign. He'll be speaking at the convention on Monday night--Michelle's night--as Obama's biography gets laid out for the country by some of the people who know him the best.

This won't be the first time Jackson has addressed conventions. He has before--to introduce his father, the Rev. Jesse Jackson. The Obama convention will be the first in a generation that the senior Jackson does not have a slot on the podium.

By now, a lot of people know that presumptive Democratic nominee Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) met Michelle at Chicago's Sidley Austin law firm office when he spent a summer there between his second and third year at Harvard Law and she was already at the Loop firm. The previous summer, Obama worked at Hopkins & Sutter, another Chicago law firm.

He's had other odd jobs, it turns out, including one he did not particularly like, selling subscriptions to the New York Times over the phone. Michelle as a high school student worked at a bindery in Chicago.

The Democrats disgorged a few more conventions details on Tuesday as they drip out the names of speakers to gin up interest in convention week.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) speaks on Monday, where Michelle Obama has already been announced as a headliner. There will also be a special video tribute to the ailing Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.) Obama's brother, basketball coach Craig Robinson will also be on the Monday program. Not known: if any of Obama's far flung family will be part of Monday night, where Obama's biography will be a central theme. The Kennedy family fits into that theme, with Obama picking up the generational torch the Kennedy Clan is passing to him.

The Honolulu Advertiser story on the big fund-raiser presumptive Democratic nominee Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) is headlining Tuesday in Hawaii. The funder features island entertainers in a show of "ho'okupu.

UPDATED 3 P.M. CENTRAL TIME SUNDAY
Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, the co-chair of the Democratic convention, said in a statement Sunday Dems will use "innovative techniques" to highlight Barack Obama and the people "fueling this national movement for change." The Dems started rolling out headline speakers, though some names have been out for days...

The emerging lineup of speakers at the Democratic National Convention in Denver....look for the Obama covention to follow tradition and have most of his former rivals take their turn at the podium.....the John Edwards problem took care of itself. After he admitted his affair on Friday, he told CBS New he would not attend the convention. Many more speakers to come...

HEADLINER SPEAKERS UPDATED LIST
Monday...Michelle Obama CONFIRMED

Tuesday...Hillary Rodham Clinton CONFIRMED

Wednesday...VICE PRESIDENT CONFIRMED
PLUS probably Bill Clinton

Thursday...Barack Obama CONFIRMED

Presumptive Democratic nominee Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) lands in his native Hawaii on Friday and starts a vacation with a "welcome" rally at Keehi Lagoon Beach Park near the airport in Honolulu featuring Obama and wife Michelle.

Obama's vacation starts on the opening day of the Summer Olympics and he'll let his paid advertising--the campaign bought time on the Olympics-- work for him while he takes some time off the campaign trail with his wife and two daughters.

The last time he was in Hawaii was December, 2006; that's when that famous bathing suit photo of him in the Pacific Ocean surf was shot. Before his presidential run, he would return to Hawaii each year. His grandmother, Madelyn Dunham and half sister Maya Soetoro-Ng are in Hawaii.

A Pew survey said 48 percent of the public is suffering from "Obama fatigue."

Asked if he was overexposed, Obama said, "We are going to correct that this week," speaking to reporters on his campaign plane en route to Chicago.

"I'm going to see my grandma, who I haven't seen in almost 18, 19 months," Obama said. "And who is getting to the age where I want to make sure where I am spending time with her on a consistent basis so she can see her great grandchildren and I want to spend some time with those children as well."

The public has a big appetite for news about the lives of the Obama family. They recently allowed their two young daughters to be interviewed with them on TV; later presumptive Democratic nominee Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) said it was a mistake. Michelle Obama talks to ABC's Robin Roberts about putting the kids in the public eye.

MS. ROBERTS: But one thing's for certain: the public's and media's appetite for the Obamas.

So we're learning and growing and figuring it out, and making some decisions and changing our minds and moving forward.--

The Obama family travels to Hawaii on Friday, the first visit for presumptive Democratic nominee Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) to his native state since the end of 2006. The family will stay for a week, with Obama taking time to headline an Aug. 12 fund-raiser in Honolulu.

The top female Democrats--House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) and potential First Lady Michelle Obama will appear together when EMILY's List (a major Clinton backer in the primary) throws a gala during the Democratic Convention in Denver.

The Tuesday, Aug. 26 reception is on the 88th anniversary of women's suffrage; EMILY's List is a major funder for viable female Democratic candidates.