leader, Mitch McConnell, had declared to a reporter a year earlier, laying out his
party’s goals, “is for President Obama to be a one-term president.” It was that
simple. The Republican Congress was devoted to Barack’s failure above all else.
It seemed they weren’t prioritizing the governance of the country or the fact that
people needed jobs. Their own power came first.
I found it demoralizing, infuriating, sometimes crushing. This was politics,
yes, but in its most fractious and cynical form, seemingly disconnected from any
larger sense of purpose. I felt emotions that perhaps Barack couldn’t afford to feel.
He stayed locked in his work, for the most part undaunted, riding out the bumps
and compromising where he could, clinging to the sober-minded, someone’s-
gotta-take-this-on brand of optimism that had always guided him. He’d been in
politics for fifteen years now. I continued to think of him as being like an old
copper pot—seasoned by fire, dinged up but still shiny.
Returning to the campaign trail—as Barack and I began to do in the fall of
2011—became something of a salve. It took us out of Washington and returned
us to communities all around the country again, places like Richmond and Reno,
where we could hug and shake hands with supporters, listening to their ideas and
concerns. It was a chance to feel the grassroots energy that has always been so
central to Barack’s vision of democracy, and to be reminded that American
citizens are for the most part far less cynical than their elected leaders. We just
needed them to get out and vote. I’d been disappointed that millions of people
had sat out during the 2010 midterm elections, effectively handing Barack a
divided Congress that could barely manage to make a law.
Despite the challenges, there was plenty to feel hopeful about, too. By the
end of 2011, the last American soldiers had left Iraq; a gradual drawdown of
troops was under way in Afghanistan. Major provisions of the Affordable Care
Act had also gone into effect, with young people allowed to remain longer on
their parents’ insurance policies and companies prevented from capping a patient’s
lifetime coverage. All this was forward motion, I reminded myself, steps taken
along the broader path.
Even with an entire political party conspiring to see Barack fail, we had no
choice but to stay positive and carry on. It was similar to when the Sidwell mom
had asked Malia if she feared for her life at tennis practice. What can you do,
really, but go out and hit another ball?
So we worked. Both of us worked. I threw myself into my initiatives.
Under the banner of Let’s Move! we continued to rack up results. My team and I