Boston for the speech, standing in the wings at the convention center as Barack
stepped into the hot glare of the stage lights and into view of all those millions of
people. He was a little nervous and so was I, though we were both determined
not to show it. This was how Barack operated anyway. The more pressure he
was under, the calmer he seemed to get. He’d written his remarks over the course
of a couple of weeks, working on them in between Illinois senate votes. He
memorized his words and rehearsed them carefully, to the point where he
wouldn’t actually need the teleprompter unless his nerves got triggered and his
mind went blank. But that wasn’t at all what happened. Barack looked out at the
audience and into the TV cameras, and as if kick-starting some internal engine,
he just smiled and began to roll.
He spoke for seventeen minutes that night, explaining who he was and
where he came from—his grandfather a GI who’d joined Patton’s Army, his
grandmother who’d worked on an assembly line during the war, his father who’d
grown up herding goats in Kenya, his parents’ improbable love, their faith in
what a good education could do for a son who wasn’t born rich or well
connected. Earnestly and expertly, he cast himself not as an outsider but rather as
a literal embodiment of the American story. He reminded the audience that a
country couldn’t be carved up simply into red and blue, that we were united by a
common humanity, compelled to care for the whole of society. He called for
hope over cynicism. He spoke with hope, projected hope, almost sang with it,
really.
It was seventeen minutes of Barack’s deft and easy way with words,
seventeen minutes of his deep, dazzling optimism on display. By the time he
finished, with a last plug for John Kerry and his running mate, John Edwards, the
crowd was on its feet and roaring, the applause booming in the rafters. I walked
out onto the stage, stepping into the blinding lights wearing high heels and a
white suit, to give Barack a congratulatory hug before turning to wave with him
at the whipped-up audience.
The energy was electric, the sound absolutely deafening. That Barack was a
good person with a big mind and serious faith in democracy was no longer any
sort of secret. I was proud of what he’d done, though it didn’t surprise me. This
was the guy I’d married. I’d known his capabilities all along. Looking back, I
think it was then that I quietly began to let go of the idea that there was any
reversing his course, that he’d ever belong solely to me and the girls. I could hear
it almost in the pulse of the applause. More of this, more of this, more of this.