June 10, 2008--Michelle Obama's "Big Pearls"

Sometimes when you want to understand the cultural issues that lie just below the surface of a political campaign, forces that powerfully influence the direction of voters’ perceptions, you have to turn away from newspapers’ op-ed pages and check out their style sections.

Case in point—this past Sunday’s New York Times’ report about Michelle Obama’s wardrobe—“She Dresses to Win.” (Article linked below.)

With some voters worried that Barack is a Muslim or closet militant and suspicions that Michelle is worse (there are scurrilous and unconfirmed Internet postings that say she appeared on a panel with Louis Farrakhan and railed against white people, calling the Whitey), the echoes in her wardrobe that evoke Jackie Kennedy and even Barbara Bush (!) do not just reflect her personal tastes but also are designed to emit subliminal messages that she is mainstream, ladylike, and therefore can be trusted not to be a “problem” if her husband is elected.

When she appeared with him Tuesday night after he secured the nomination she wore a simple Jackie-like sleeveless purple A-line sheath dress and her now signature big pearls. And her hair was more reminiscent of Donna Reed’s flip than say Angela Davis’ Afro.

But, to be clear, she was not sending out little-First-Lady messages. It appeared that she was not wearing stockings and her very hip Azzedine Alaïa belt was not something Jackie would have chosen. Michelle seemed to be saying—if I read the cultural signals correctly—that she may be OK being Mrs. Obama but she will also be respectfully independent.

Culturally at least as interesting, and widely talked about, was the Fist-Bump that they exchanged when they appeared on stage together. At one end of the political spectrum, some folks at Fox News are speculating that this is a version of a “terrorist handshake”—which reveals that no one there has ever been to a sporting event—while others think it is youthful, playful, and above all cool.

I’m in the latter group, especially since Barack also gave Michelle a tap on her butt as she exited the stage.

We’ve had our fill of presidents who fooled around on the side, from Thomas Jefferson to William Jefferson Clinton, but now it feels so good to have a potential president who, even in public, at that historic moment, took so much pleasure from touching his wife’s body.

This was underscored the next day when someone asked him what he had planned for the weekend and he said, “Spend time with the kids, and go out on a date.”

Sounds like family values to me.