The first lady recently inspired voters on the trail when she campaigned for Hillary Clinton, but don’t expect her to pursue a career in politics

When Michelle Obama took the Democratic national convention by storm this year – and again when she gave a barnstorming speech attacking Donald Trump last month – the impact she had came as no surprise to Neil Sroka.

As multimedia director for Barack Obama’s nascent presidential campaign, Sroka witnessed firsthand the future first lady’s power of oratory in Orangeburg, South Carolina. “It was directed to African American women,” he recalled of the speech she made in November 2007. “They thought if he’s elected, he would be shot and killed. She said, ‘We’ve talked about this as a family and we want to do it.’ It was an incredibly important speech.”

‘She found her voice’: Michelle Obama’s DNC speech hailed as her boldest yet Read more

Nine years later, Michelle Obama again inspired voters on the trail, this time in an attempt to defend her husband’s legacy. Many hailed her as the standout performer in Hillary Clinton’s crowded field of surrogates. Indeed, she had a popularity rating that the defeated Clinton would envy and, it might be argued, eclipsed the candidate she was championing. So, what happens in the next act?

Obama will turn 53 on 17 January 2017 and leave the White House three days later. She and her husband will remain in Washington, in the upmarket neighbourhood of Kalorama, while their younger daughter, Sasha, finishes high school. They will also spend time in Chicago working on the Obama Foundation, whose website pictures them arm in arm and quotes her as saying: “There are still so many causes worth sacrificing for. There is still so much history yet to be made.”

But the rest is open to conjecture. Obama’s heartfelt speeches embodied anti-Trump sentiment and left audiences in tears. One Trump aide reportedly opined that only she could match the Republican nominee’s ability to viscerally connect with voters. With Clinton having gained significantly fewer votes than Barack Obama and the Democrats seeking a new standard bearer, there may now be some wishful thinking for Michelle Obama to launch a political career of her own.

Yet the notion has been debunked time and again. The president told TV host Jimmy Kimmel last month: “Michelle was never wild about politics. Michelle once explained to me, ‘I try to organise my life not to have a lot of mess around, and politics is just a big mess.’”

There are still so many causes worth sacrificing for. There is still so much history yet to be made Michelle Obama

David Axelrod, the Obama campaign mastermind, told conservative talk radio that he “would bet everything I own” against the prospect of her running for office. And one family friend, who did not wish to be named, told the Guardian: “She hates this.”

Sroka agrees. Now communications director for the liberal campaign group Democracy for America, he said: “I would be incredibly shocked if the first lady ended up in politics herself. There is a tendency to believe the past is prologue because former first lady Hillary Clinton has been such a big political figure, but I don’t think that’s the case.”

Obama has become adept at using media appearances – most memorably James Corden’s carpool karaoke – to promote worthy causes to mass audiences. She is unique in spanning politics, popular culture and social change, Sroka added. “Part of the reason that she’s such a powerful public figure is that she sits outside politics. She lives outside the bubble of the presidency as much as you can in that position.”

“As soon as she became a politician, she would lose a lot of that power,” Sroka said. “There are a lot of ways to become a moral leader of a country without running for office. From everything I’ve read, I think she sees that too.”

Historian Joshua Kendall, author of First Dads, a study of presidents and their families, takes a similar view. “Right now she transcends politics even though she’s campaigning for Hillary Clinton,” he said in a pre-election interview. “She’s the moral centre of America. She’s campaigning on moral grounds, not political grounds. It looks like when she leaves the office she’s going to have some kind of moral capital.

“She’s going to want to take the moral high ground and do something with it. The Hillary Clinton model of senator and president is off the table. She’s been saying, and Clinton has been quoting, ‘When they go low, we go high.’ I think she feels politics is very dirty and she doesn’t want to be in the gutter.”

Certain threads running through Obama’s career offer a clue as to her potential future causes. In her Orangeburg remarks nine years ago, she talked about her father working hard in a blue-collar job and her grandfather who never went to college but “filled my brother and me with big dreams about the lives we could lead”.



She went on: “So these were the voices I was hearing growing up. And they gave me the strength and courage to overcome the doubt and fear I was hearing in other corners of my community. From classmates who thought a black girl with a book was acting white. From teachers who told me not to reach too high because my test scores were too low. And from well-meaning but misguided folks who said, ‘No, you can’t,’ ‘You’re not smart enough,’ and ‘You’re not ready’. Who said, ‘Success isn’t meant for little black girls from the South Side of Chicago.’

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Barack and Michelle Obama pose for photos for her exercise initiative. Photograph: Pete Souza/The White House

“And you know what? When I listened to my own voice and cast the cynics aside, when I forged ahead and overcame the doubts and fears of others about who I was and what I could become, I found that their doubts and fears were misplaced.”

This subject – extending opportunity and self-belief to inner cities, resisting the soft bigotry of low expectations – has been a recurring theme of Obama’s eight years in the White House. In a commencement address on the South Side of Chicago last year, she told students how she felt overwhelmed and out of place when she started at Princeton University while others brimmed with self-confidence.

Sroka said: “She can speak with real clarity about the opportunities available to children now and, frankly, the opportunities that are not open any more due to inequality and the shrinking social safety net. That gives her the ability to help others to reach for big things.”



Kendall added: “She seems very concerned about the next generation. She knows the huge difference an Ivy League education made in her life and has the sense that minorities should make use of those pathways and they shouldn’t be considered out of reach for people in inner cities.”

The Obama Foundation is likely to take a lower profile than its Clinton counterpart, Kendall believes. “Bill Clinton’s megabucks nonprofit path may be off the table because of all the grief the Clintons have got. The [Jimmy] Carter Center might be more of a model for the Obamas. It is extremely above board in its donors, and there hasn’t been a shred of scandal around them.”



Obama might study the route taken by first ladies who have gone before. Eleanor Roosevelt served as a US delegate to the UN. “Lady Bird” Johnson became a prominent environmentalist. Betty Ford helped establish centres for treatment of alcohol and drug addiction. Obama’s predecessor, Laura Bush, served as an honorary ambassador for the UN literacy decade, promotes health issues and serves on multiple boards.



Facebook Twitter Pinterest Michelle Obama dances to Gloria Estefan’s Conga at the White House. Photograph: Carolyn Kaster/Associated Press

Anita McBride, who was chief of staff to Bush from 2005 to 2009, noted that Obama had led initiatives to improve children’s diets and promote education for girls around the world and is likely to continue with both. “Clearly she’s created a national movement on childhood obesity and is likely to stay engaged in some way.”

A UN ambassadorial role, perhaps with the children’s agency Unicef, might be a good fit. And inevitably there is the prospect of public speaking and a memoir. McBride, now at American University in Washington, said: “Most presidents and first ladies also focus on writing a book. They owe it to themselves and they owe it to history to do that. Everyone else has written about her, so it’s a chance to give her version.”

Obama’s favourite word in recent months has been “bittersweet” as she cycles through the calendar of events for the last time. She has also made clear there are things she will not miss as a private citizen, such as a permanent security detail. Her style is likely to contrast with Melania Trump, the first foreign-born first lady since Louisa Adams in the 1820s, who is a former model with little known interest in humanitarian or feminist causes and seems likely to play a more traditional role.

The pair met for tea at the White House on Thursday ahead of a potentially awkward transition. McBride noted that Laura and George W Bush were realists and always knew they would be leaving after eight years. “You can logistically and physically prepare yourself. It was unlike her father-in-law George HW Bush, who only served one term; that departure was a lot more abrupt.”

Last month Obama bade farewell to staff at her beloved White House vegetable garden. “I didn’t just take on this issue as first lady, I took it on because I’m a mother who cares deeply about the health and well-being of my daughters,” she said. “I took it on because I’m a citizen who loves this country and cares deeply about the future of all of our kids.

“So I intend to keep working on this issue for the rest of my life.”