Becoming

campaigning, this time for a seat in the U.S. Senate, ahead of the fall 2004 elections. ...

When I asked how we’d afford living expenses if we were going to have homes in both D.C. and Ch ...

“M interacting with potential constituents, he was the same man I knew at home— funny and charming, smart ...

Boston for the speech, standing in the wings at the convention center as Barack stepped into the hot glare of t ...

I The media response to Barack’s speech was hyperbolic. “I’ve just seen the first black president ...

things were different. Barack was flying back and forth to D.C. all the time now. He had a Senate office ...

had two little girls in school in Chicago and that I was pretty attached to my job. I explained that Bar ...

work and left our kids with my mother in order to be there. If I was going to be a political spous ...

T and his vision for the country, threshing them into words on his legal pads late at night. He really ...

potential. I was aware that he’d been having private conversations with friends, advisers, and prospectiv ...

who’d turned up in our Emergency Department with care providers they could see regularly, regardless of wh ...

Which was code for “Only if Michelle says I can.” On nights when Barack was in Washington, I lay alone ...

family that believed in forethought—that ran fire drills at home and showed up early to everything. ...

good, smart people who were ready to help. Who was I to stop him? How could I put my own needs, and ev ...

A 16 lmost from the minute we agreed it would be okay for him to run, Barack became a kind of human ...

those people were empowered to participate. His run for president would be an even bigger test of that ...

A like the daughters of a future president than making sure they looked like they at least had a ...

scheduled to lead the invocation ahead of Barack’s speech. Barack had to make a difficult call, phoning th ...

“Oh, sweetie, you’ve got to keep that on. It’s freezing outside.” I grabbed the hat and fitted it back ...

H did. This was the call-and-response of democracy, I realized, a contract forged person by perso ...