“Oh, my goodness! I’m home!” As a Chicago resident, First Lady Michelle Obama’s opening words at a Pat Quinn rally really get through to me. Chicagoans take a lot of pride in anything our city makes—from hot dogs to our baseball teams to the Obamas. And hearing the First Lady call Chicago home and speak about the future of Illinois is compelling, especially during a hotly contested governor’s race.
Michelle Obama’s support of Pat Quinn at this rally and, more notably, in TV and radio ads, marked her first involvement in the midterm elections.
Today, the First Lady backed Texas gubernatorial candidate Wendy Davis in ads as well, but with a slightly different approach than her support for Quinn. With Quinn, she focuses on how he is not only a qualified candidate but also a good friend of hers, a reasonable approach given his businessman opponent Bruce Rauner’s focus on painting himself as a real person and Quinn as a career politician.
The whole premise of the Illinois advertisement, after all, is to show us that the President and the First Lady are also Barack and Michelle, to show voters that Governor Quinn—with whom many in Illinois have become disenchanted—is also Pat. As she put it at the rally when talking about Quinn’s plans that matter most to her, “I’m talking as a citizen, not as a wife.”
But can the First Lady speak as a citizen rather than as a wife? In her TV ad, she says, “For this election, Barack and I are casting our votes for our friend Pat Quinn.” Her emphasis on the word “our” is evident: she is not speaking for just herself or just as a citizen. Even as her husband remains quiet this election cycle, she can do some serious talking on their behalf, in a subtle and elegant way.
An Annenberg Public Policy Center Poll found that Michelle Obama’s backing of a candidate would make 30% of people surveyed see the candidate as more favorable, 29% see the candidate as less favorable, and to 39% of people it makes no difference either way. Interestingly, Barack Obama’s support of a candidate also makes 30% see the candidate as more favorable, but it makes 38% see the candidate as less favorable. So having Michelle there instead of Barack is no mistake: she can speak for both of them while not eliciting the negative feelings people have toward the President. Ultimately, it’s the same reward, but less risk.
At the moment, Quinn leads Rauner in the polls—but he can still use a little help from his friends in this election, especially if those friends are the Obamas.