Girl talk wins fans for Mrs. Obama

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By Andrea Billups

PONTIAC, Mich. | The couches on stage were sleek and white. Think Dwell magazine meets Oprah's confessional talk lair. The tone of the event was as much estrogenfest as it was campaign rally, as Michelle Obama hit the stump in Michigan Wednesday as part of two-day Midwest swing and a revamped strategy designed to soften her image and attract more female voters, a bloc much needed for her husband to win the White House.

Even Michigan Gov. Jennifer M. Granholm got in on the girlie show as they campaigned together in struggling Pontiac, Mich. Yes, Mrs. Granholm told Mrs. Obama, her state was bleeding jobs and desperate. But the economic bantering did not begin until after the two-term Democratic governor offered a gal-pal fashion compliment, telling the cheering crowd of mainly black women that while she and Mrs. Obama had something in common as Harvard Law School graduates, she would not bare her arms in public.

The women in the audience laughed knowingly as the statuesque Mrs. Obama, baring enviably chic, muscular arms in a sleeveless sheath, won them over with a roundtable discussion on parenting, family and her own American success story.

"I´m a working-class kid from a working-class community," she said softly, touting her humble roots in South Chicago and chronicling her husband´s background as the son of a single mother whose struggles were relatable to many other women.

In Democratic circles, at least, the forthright and fashion-forward Mrs. Obama is winning fans and earning plaudits as a formidable speaker on behalf of her husband and as a style setter comparable to iconic first lady Jacqueline Kennedy.

Said veteran Democratic political strategist Robert Shrum, who advised Al Gore in 2000 and the Kerry-Edwards campaign in 2004: "In her own right, she´s one of the better speakers that I´ve heard. She has the capacity to capture people´s imaginations in a way that very few potential first ladies have. She´s an incredibly warm and charismatic person and she has lots of empathy with people and she projects that empathy. People are quite curious about her."

But as much as she has earned magazine covers and is beloved among some women and Obama supporters, Mrs. Obama´s popularity ratings have slumped in recent months amid some criticism of her occasional campaign remarks, including one that called into question her patriotism.

An Associated Press/Yahoo poll released July 2 and conducted in late June found that while 30 percent of Americans had favorable views of Mrs. Obama, 35 percent saw her as unfavorable. A Pew Research Center poll in May found that more than one in five voters held a negative view of Mrs. Obama. By contrast, Cindy McCain, the wife of the presumptive Republican nominee, Sen. John McCain of Arizona, was viewed negatively by 10 percent of voters.

The image slide prompted changes and what political observers described in the past few weeks as a softening of her image and a change in her tone.

Some watched with skepticism as the power spouse, who earned a six-figure executive income at a Chicago hospital before stepping away to campaign full time, attempted light banter and celebrity chatter on female-friendly TV shows such as "The View." The Obamas also allowed themselves and their two young daughters to be interviewed on camera for the celebrity gossip TV show "Access Hollywood," a move that sparked criticism and prompted the senator from Illinois to acknowledge that it was a mistake that they would not repeat.