Michelle Obama’s less-political reputation helps her appeal to the grassroots. FLOTUS a 'huge force' in grassroots outreach

For Michelle Obama, the last six weeks of the presidential campaign are all about energizing the grassroots.

The first lady is talking up her “It Takes One” outreach initiative and focusing on voter registrations, recruiting volunteers and getting existing volunteers to commit more time. Her message took on new urgency when she made a campaign stop Friday in Iowa, where early voting began this week.


Out on the trail, she’s talking about her husband’s record but without delving into Democrats, Republicans and partisan divisions. Instead, she’s breaking down the reelection campaign into more direct and accessible terms: One more voter signed up; one more hour of phone banking; one more vote from a volunteer’s neighborhood, apartment building or dorm.

“If there is anyone here or anyone in your lives who might be thinking that their vote doesn’t matter, that their involvement doesn’t count, that in this complex political process that ordinary folks can’t possibly make a difference — if you know anyone like that, I want you to just think about those five votes. Keep that in your head,” she said last week at North Carolina Central University in Durham, revving up a crowd of 3,100 – mostly students and campaign volunteers — at the historically black university.

The first lady is the only high-level surrogate speaking in those terms this fall, in a role vastly different from those played by previous first ladies. It’s also very much unlike Ann Romney’s campaign function, as the supportive and sometimes-frustrated spouse.

The first lady is “a huge force to educate folks and to really push our supporters,” said Jeremy Bird, the Obama campaign’s national field director, calling her “a champion of the grassroots.”

Her existing interests in getting people to register, volunteer and vote “really resonates with our grassroots strategy,” Bird said.

And, to Obama, it’s the way she helps her husband win a second term.

“To put it in perspective, I want you to think back to what happened in this state in 2008,” Obama told the crowd at NCCU. “Back then, we won North Carolina by 14,000 votes. “All right, now, to some of you that might sound like a lot. But when you break it down, that’s just five votes per precinct. Do you hear me? Five, all right? Five.”

It’s part of a broader approach to political engagement that Obama laid out last Saturday in a speech to the Congressional Black Caucus Gala in Washington.

“How many of us have asked someone whether they’re going to vote, and they say, no, I’m too busy — and besides, I voted last time; or, nah, it’s not like my vote is going to make a difference?” Obama asked. “See, after so many folks sacrificed so much so that we could make our voices heard, too many of us still choose not to participate.”

“Make no mistake about it, this is the march of our time — marching door to door, registering people to vote. Marching everyone you know to the polls every single election,” she later added. “See, this is the sit-in of our day — sitting in a phone bank, sitting in your living room, calling everyone you know — your friends, your neighbors, that nephew you haven’t seen in a while, that classmate you haven’t spoken to in years — making sure they all know how to register, where to vote — every year, in every election.”

Obama’s less-political reputation – more about civic engagement than partisanship — helps her appeal to the grassroots, said former Gov. Howard Dean, because many of the people drawn to Barack Obama in 2008 are fed up with politics, but still hopeful that the president can take the country in the right direction.

“She has an advantage because she’s not perceived as particularly political,” Dean said. “So she connects with non-politically oriented Americans very well at a time when I don’t think most Americans are turned on by politics.:”

And at least in terms of lighting up the grassroots and getting them to feel ownership in the election, she’s having an impact. After Obama’s speech in Durham, Korey Mercer, a senior at NCCU who introduced her at the event, said his biggest takeaway was that “all it takes is one vote to drastically change an election” — something he will keep in mind as he volunteers for the campaign on campus this fall.

Asked how he’ll try to convince classmates and others disappointed with the president to vote for him again, Mercer repeated much of what the first lady had just said. “Look at his track record: He’s doing a wonderful job, but of course it’s going to take more than four years to change the country,” Mercer said. “It’s up to us [what] the next four years are going to be.”

As state voter registration deadlines begin to approach, she’s begun to emphasize voter registration, urging her in-person audiences and anyone listening from afar to visit gottaregister.com to sign up. The results are tangible: Her day trip to North Carolina last week — which included the rally in Durham and another in Greenville — yielded 500 new voter registrations.

Her registration push will give way in October to encouraging supporters to take advantage of early voting programs if their states have them. And, in the days just before the election, she’ll shift to encouraging supporters to vote and urging the grassroots to do all they can to make sure that others around them vote, too.

“Her visits are all about putting fuel in the gas tank and seeing how fast the engine can go through Election Day,” said Jason Roth, a Democratic strategist who was the Obama campaign’s north Florida field director in 2008.

At each appearance, local field teams collect data about voters in their areas, Roth said, plus “a lot of pledge cards of people willing to make phone calls and knock on doors.” In North Carolina, the campaign was able to schedule of nearly 3,000 shifts for new and existing volunteers.

That’s a consistent theme for the first lady’s appearances — 15 solo rallies since she launched “It Takes One” in late July.

Before she speaks, she meets backstage with small groups of top volunteers, thanking them for their work and encouraging them to get more involved as neighborhood team leaders.

“She talked to us about the importance of the one — each of us doing what we could to help with the campaign,” said Terri Arredondo, a middle school teacher from Chillicothe, Ohio, who met the first lady this summer.

The first lady discussed the achievements of the president’s first term and told the dozen volunteers that met with her that day in Columbus that “without us on the ground, it would be a much different story,” Arredondo said. And then she pushed them to take on more responsibility and become a neighborhood team leader.

Part of what compelled Arredondo to accept a position in southwestern Ross County was hearing Obama speak knowingly about the challenges and rewards of on-the-ground campaigning.

“Nothing harder than knocking on somebody’s door and talking to them about something, right?” the first lady said that day in Columbus. “I want you all to know that the kind of grassroots work that you all are doing to get people focused and fired up … is the work that is at the core of everything that we’re doing for this campaign.”

Michaela Penix, who heard Obama speak last week at East Carolina University, said the first lady’s rally “was definitely an energizer.” She’s been juggling campaign work with a part-time teaching job and graduate school in public health, but Obama’s appreciation “it made it all worthwhile.”