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The Obamas' Vision for a Better World

A Power Couple for the White House

By Klaus Brinkbäumer

An African-American couple from Chicago will move into the White House on January 20. Like her husband, President-elect Barack Obama's wife Michelle comes to Washington loaded with expectations and she has already become a symbol in her own right. Who is Michelle Obama, what is her role and how much power will she wield?

They were sitting in a hotel room in downtown Chicago, on the evening of Nov. 4, 2008 when it finally hit them. The enormous TV set was on, his daughters had fallen asleep and his mother-in-law had gone into the other room, and he was the one -- "The One," as they called him -- whose face was appearing on the screen. As was so often the case in the last 18 months, Barack Obama was watching himself on TV, while his wife saw her husband in duplicate, once on the screen and once in real life, sitting next to her.

But on that evening, new words had appeared on the screen underneath his face: "President-elect Barack Obama." "Wow," Michelle said, "you are the elected 44th President of the United States. What a great country." And for once Barack Obama, sitting on that ugly plaid hotel couch, was speechless. Instead, he simply sat there in his white shirt and pink tie, staring at the screen in stunned silence. She extended her hand and embraced her husband for a moment, but only for just one, because it was already time to leave, to go outside and appear before the crowds. A short time later, as they stood on a stage in Chicago's Grant Park, looking out at 140,000 laughing and crying people, she whispered in his ear: "Well done. Great job."

The knighting. The biggest possible compliment.

By then the four of them were standing on the stage, the father holding hands with his younger daughter Natasha, 7, nicknamed Sasha, and the mother with the older daughter, Malia, 10. As they gazed down at the crowd, what they saw was collective ecstasy -- an American rapture.

These four people are darlings of the US public, and they became a symbol long before the presidency. Obama, almost worshipped as a politician, is experiencing the honeymoon phase between voters and the winner of the election, a phase that will come to an end. But these four people? The Obamas represent the happy family and, especially in difficult times, the love of parents for their children, a love that tells the world that everything is possible. Yes, they can.

They are black, and that is important. In fact, perhaps this is even their most important task: to demonstrate to America's whites and blacks alike that an African-American couple can easily glide into the role of president and first lady -- and be clever and charming and glamorous, all at the same time. This is all a matter of course, and yet America still maintains a different image of black men and women.

It is hard to avoid clichés when discussing these issues, but are clichés always wrong? It is true that many black men disappear after fathering their children, and that many wear their underwear higher than their jeans -- two things for which Obama has repeatedly criticized his fellow African-Americans. And when black women appear in the American media, says actress Whoopi Goldberg, "they have no teeth", and if they do "they cannot put a sentence together." There are black female authors who say that black American women still have the reputation of being helpless victims: sexually available, at the financial mercy of others, professionally worthless.

But now there is Barack Obama standing on the stage in Chicago's Grant Park and, standing next to him, his wife Michelle, a woman who was not elected and yet has been cast in the role of a queen, a Mrs. America. She is clever and independent and funny, and she is neither surgically enhanced nor anorexic.

"I can really make him mad," she says. "He does his best, but he's still a man."

"She's more reasonable today," he says.

"I know now," she says, "when the fight is worth it."

Barack and Michelle Obama come across as a serious, adult couple. They look like people who respect each other, and not two people who, like others before them, present a picture-perfect life to the public while leading a double life in private. Instead, the Obamas are two individuals who trust each other --and, together, have embarked on a journey to change the United States.

If Obama has his way, America will become a different country, at the very least. It will be governed by people who keep their promises. It will be a country that overcomes the economic crisis in 2009 and then successfully tackles climate change. The United States wants fewer enemies and more partners in the future. In Obama's vision, the US will be as agile as China. Americans will be able to talk on the phone while traveling on trains, and no one will have to feel ashamed anymore when walking through the corridors of New York airports. Obama and his team intend to fashion the United States into a modern society.

He will be sworn in on January 20. His strongest ally and biggest supporter is his wife.

Naturally, Michelle Obama is also a political figure. She managed his election campaign, together with strategist David Axelrod. She appeared in the arenas of politics, doing interviews, appearing on "60 minutes" or with Barbara Walters, and giving speeches. Obama refers to Michelle as the person with the "final word" on all decisions.

The Obamas are undoubtedly a modern couple.

It is also true that these two people, like so many couples, have long argued over the assignment of roles within their family. And like most every couple, they too have asked themselves questions like: Who does what? Who has time left over for himself or herself? Who gives and who takes? And who progresses professionally while the other holds back?

Given the complications of big city life, who can actually manage to be quickly and flexible professionally, competent and creative with the kids, while at the same time nurturing friendships, realizing their potential and seeing, hearing and promoting their partner? Who has the capacity to feel safe and yet free? And when is there time to actually read a book? What about sex?

It's a lot. The Obamas seem to manage, however, and they even seem to be able to laugh together and about each other. They look so maddeningly relaxed up there on their stages. And they make it all seem so easy.

We are not just seeing a new political star enter the limelight, but the new model couple of our era. And, like Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie or Kate Winslet and Sam Mendes in the world of movies, like Paul Auster and Siri Hustvedt or Nicole Krauss and Jonathan Safran Foer in the literary world, and Steffi Graf and Andre Agassi in sports, the Obamas are allowing us to witness their attempt to live in an equal partnership -- in the most public dollhouse on the planet, the White House.

Michelle O. claims not to be intimidated by these high expectations. "You have to be a role model for the entire country," she says. "Does it feel like a burden? Not really. I'm looking forward to it because of the great opportunities" that the task brings with it."

It is touching to watch them, and it is deeply romantic to witness the way he so obviously values her, as a wife, as an advisor and as the woman he loves. When she congratulated him on that stage in Grant Park, the two smiled for an even broader audience, the global public, and they only smiled for each other.

Obama does a lot to emphasize how much he values the woman at his side. He is not ridiculing her or putting her down when he calls his wife "the rock of the Obama family." He doesn't sound like many men in powerful positions, who are more likely to devalue their wives, either by deriding them or hiding them in the shadows of their own homes. They rarely admit that it is their wives who support and help manage them, the way a good coach treats his athletes, both keeping them grounded and encouraging them to reach for new heights.

Barack Obama says that this is precisely what Michelle does. He allows himself to display weakness, to shed tears at the death of his grandmother, and he allows Michelle to be strong, to stand tall next to him, hold her head up high and not shyly tilted to the side. The Obamas share the same body language, giving the impression that they could just as easily switch roles, with her in power and him watching the kids.

Michelle Obama manages the task of combining all of her roles, with her bold, no-nonsense look and her occasionally cutting, but rarely humorless voice. Sometimes she is barefoot, sometimes she wears ballerina shoes, she is loud, and everything she does, she does to the fullest, none of it comes easy.

So far, America's men and women have not reproached this woman for her strength. So far, Michelle has been content to stand, smiling, next to or behind her husband, and has been deeply admired by men and women alike. Her humor can be coarse, as if it were coming from a ghetto in Queens, and the openness with which she has talked about poverty in America could have pigeonholed her as a bitter black woman -- a political death sentence.

Yet she has still succeeded at being perceived as an individual and has managed to defeat the stereotypes. "I'm probably the first person of my kind the nation has seen out there," she says. And now her country is forced to come to grips with a black woman who is complex and is setting an example for all of the women of her generation by overcoming all the difficulties of combining career, partnership and family.

Barack Obama said recently that he is fearful of the conditions in this country and the long transition period between the election and the inauguration. His goal, in recent weeks, has been to assemble his team, what he calls the "best possible team" so that "we hit the ground running."

Presumably, Obama knows that there is already too much hype about his presidency before it has even begun, and that it has already been glorified and overly sentimentalized. Rarely has someone with such a messianic reputation moved into the White House, and a bigger star has probably never laid claim to the Oval Office before. Obama has said that, in reality, people don't even expect all that much of him: "Honesty. Competence. They expect a government that fights for them. I will be able to live up to these expectations, because that's why I ran for office."

He also said that his wife would remind him of the goals she and he once had when he first entered politics. "She is my reality check. She knows my strengths and my weaknesses. She brings me down to earth when I take myself too seriously," he said.

Who has a better sense of humor? "She does," he says.

Who gets the last word? "She does," he says. "I do," she says.

Who is this woman? Where does she come from, what does she want, and what role will she play at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, in the East Wing of the White House, a building partly built by slaves for presidents and their families, which now includes her, the first First Lady descended from slaves?

A journey to explore the roots of this family, this couple and this woman must pass through Chicago. It is shortly before Christmas, the last week that the Obamas spend at home.