The Michelle Obama Option

The idea of running Michelle Obama for president isn't new, but Ted Cruz gave it a different twist as a solution to the Joe-and-Kamala conundrum:

“Here’s the scenario that I think is perhaps the most likely and most dangerous,” Cruz said on his “Verdict with Ted Cruz” podcast. “In August of 2024, the Democrat kingmakers jettison Joe Biden and parachute in Michelle Obama.”

Cruz explained that by running Michelle Obama as the party’s candidate, the Democrats could “avoid the problems” of having to choose a candidate among political figures like Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg, Vice President Kamala Harris and California Gov. Gavin Newsom.

Sen Cruz sees this as effectively a dropping of the charade and an acknmowledgement that Barack has been pulling the strings all along:

“Barack Obama is already running the Biden administration,” Cruz said. “I think he is already the puppet master, behind this Biden White House, I don’t think Joe Biden is the decision maker. And so, when I see the media turning on Joe Biden right now, I think the odds of Michelle Obama parachuting in in August of 2024 have risen dramatically.”

I've posted here that I don't think Barack is the puppet master in the first place. But I also think the idea that putting Barack and Michelle back in the White House with Barack again running the show would be a reprise of the golden age -- or at least, it could be pitched as that -- is just as much a mistake.

I always sensed background vibes in the Obama years that the two didn't get along, and if nothing else, they have to be praised for maintaining the facade that they did for eight difficult years. And as of 2019, things had only gotten worse:

Michelle and Barack Obama are ferociously feuding while living separate lives, and pals fear the bubbling bad blood will boil over into an ugly, scandal scarred divorce!

. . . Currently, Barack jets around the globe on big-money speaking gigs from a base in Washington, D.C., while Michelle, 55, rented a sprawling home in the Hollywood Hills, where she’s expanding her blooming showbiz career and schmoozing with big A-listers Beyoncé, Jay-Z and the Clooneys.

Their separate careers and problems with wild daughters Malia, 21, and Sasha, 18, have torn apart their family life, insiders dish.

Apparently this was the case even while they were in the White House, per this report from 2013:

Michelle Obama has had enough. According to a bombshell new report, the First Lady and Barack Obama are sleeping in separate White House bedrooms. Michelle is also preparing to boot her hubby of 21 years out of their ritzy Chicago home - and seriously discussing divorce.

“The smart money says the marriage is doomed,” a source told the National Enquirer. “Barack and Michelle have had a rocky go for years and mainly stayed together for their daughters and his political career. “But now Michelle is mad AS hell. She feels violated in front of the whole world, and screamed at him, ‘I’ve had enough.’ “She’s met with divorce lawyers and told Barack that she wants a life apart from him. “Michelle will stay in the White House for the rest of Barack’s term for appearances’ sake, but she made it clear they’ll be leading separate lives.

“She’s moving into one of the vacant bedrooms in the family’s private living quarters, and she’s preparing to move his clothes and personal things out of their million-dollar house in Chicago.”

To make a return to the White House by the two as a couple, with Michelle a ventriloquist's dummy on Barack's lap, a remotely credible enterprise would require that the two return to the old charade of domestic bliss. I can't imagine either wants to do this, when they appear to be doing perfectly well individually outside the public eye.

But let's go back to the problem that Hillary first illustrated, but so far, nobody's looked at very closely. On one hand, Hillary was never a charismatic bombshell with working-class appeal like Eva Peron, but on the other, even though Hillary was frumpy, she didn't have the gravitas of Golda Meir, Margaret Thatcher, or Angela Merkel. In fact, it didn't help her at all that almost any woman besides Hillary could clearly turn Bill's crank better than Hillary could.

In fact, there's the pesky subtext that won't go away that Barack is gay. And let's not forget that by late in the Obama era, YouTubers were calling Michelle "Mike". This is the unspoken problem of Bud Light, that there are subtle signals that resonate in the popular subconscious that can attach themselves to brands without warning: suddenly, Bud Light became gay beer, and nobody who wasn't openly gay wanted to be seen drinking it.

By the same token, Michelle is seen among the same cis male population as unsexy in a masculine sort of way, such that anyone married to her would probably prefer more feminine company, even if they're guys. Michelle as president is so ugly, she'll make all us guys turn gay. Neither Hillary nor Michelle is credible in a conventional spousal role, nor as a symbolic national spouse, even though each tries to seem as though she is, which leads to an overall impression of phoniness.

So I don't think political mechanics would make Michelle electable, especially in the unspoken context that anyone married to her would have to be gay. But this ignores Sen Cruz's implication that the Democrats have to get past the Kamala problem somehow: Biden has announced that Kamala is staying on the ticket, she's his designated successor, and to replace her with a white candidate, even a white female, would lose the party black women voters and surely the general election. Thus Michelle Obama, which nevertheless won't work.

So far, that view is probably correct. The only way it could be contradicted would be to have a Kennedy type who's so charismatic that nobody notices there's no black on the ticket. Robert Kennedy Jr so far doesn't quite qualify. As this piece in Slate puts it, The Cake Is Baked. Deal With It.

[T]here are no magic wands in politics—only unappealing options and constraints imposed by choices made in the past, what social scientists call “path dependence.” The moment Biden selected Harris as his partner in 2020, he all but ensured that she would be more or less irreplaceable.

. . . Rather than worrying about what Harris might do in 2028, Democrats would do well to imagine what she and her team might do if they get thrown under the bus, especially if they feel like they are taking the fall for the failings of the president himself. If you think cutting memoirs from random Cabinet secretaries are bad, imagine the tea that a spurned Harris and her team might spill about the inner workings of the Biden administration. There are probably more embarrassing stories to share than bitey German Shepherds and interminable slide shows over lunch.

So quit it: Vice President Harris isn’t going anywhere.

Let's recall as well that Sen Cruz is a Republican. If he's saying nominating Michelle is a "dangerous" option, maybe we should ask if he's trying to goad the Democrats into picking it.