Marketing Michelle

The Chicago Sun Times carries a Gannett interview with Michelle as their lead. She's going after Hillary's women, and swing voters. We get the pantyhose update, but some of the original didn't make the cut. Sun Times:

Evelyn Simien, a political scientist at the University of Connecticut, said Obama is wise to stress her ''Suzy Homemaker side'' because ''it's the side that married women can relate to. She's got to be strategic.''

USA Today/Gannett:

Discussing her life as a mother and wife, Obama sounds nothing like the woman conservatives describe as whiny (Peter Schweizer in National Review) and her husband's "bitter half" (Michelle Malkin on her blog).

Evelyn Simien, a political scientist at the University of Connecticut, says the stereotype of black women is that "we're angry, even if we have a smile on our face." She says Obama is wise to stress her "Suzy Homemaker side" because "it's the side that married women can relate to. She's got to be strategic."

Will it work? John Pitney, a political scientist at Claremont McKenna College and author of The Art of Political Warfare, says Obama "invited some of this scrutiny" with her comment about not being "really proud" of her country until now. "That was catnip to opposition researchers," he says, and has defined her image so far.

Her current activities play more to her strengths, he says, and her husband's defense of her — "lay off my wife," he said on ABC in May — could also help.

Well, will it work? Ms. Professor Simien sounds kind of angy and patronizing to me, presumably a Michelle Obama fan. Bitter and whiny? America will decide.

An interesting take here:

John Quelch, a senior associate dean of business administration at Harvard University, said the unprecedented emphasis on the marketing and packaging of the candidates' wives in 2008 is an outcome of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's own highly competitive, ultimately unsuccessful, effort to win the Democratic nomination.

"What occurs to me is that there were three women running for president - and now there are two," he said. "Such a large proportion of the U.S. population is interested in having a woman candidate, that the interest in the spouses is a knock-off effect following Sen. Clinton's withdrawal. There is still an absolute passion for the voice of women to be represented in the political dialogue in the highest office in the land."

Maureen Dowd has been pretty amusing, getting blowback from her own public editor and some support from the XX-Factor Salonistas. Her latest, detailing the new Hillary and Barack Unity. I somehow don't think we'll see Michelle and Hillary campaigning together. And while some of Michelle's supporters would like to portray her, in typical Dem fashion, as a (happy camper?!!-- move to the middle attempt) victim, she is no more a victim than Hillary is, and she's just as angry.

--crossposted at UNCoRRELATED