For weeks, the media has scrambled, preparing to assess the first 100 day of our POTUS. But since all eyes are on the first couple, I wanted to take a look at the first 100 days of our FLOTUS.
For those who wonder who or what is a FLOTUS-let me explain. It's an acronym for First Lady of the United States. The president is POTUS, President of the United States. Washington loves its jargon, and so far, also Mrs. Obama. Her popularity ratings are sky high. Better than the poll numbers for POTUS, President Obama.
Michelle Obama's first 100 days in the White House really began more than 365 days ago in Wisconsin. Rallying an audience in Milwaukee, she said: "For the first time in my adult life, I am really proud of my country." She explained that she was proud of the people who'd gotten involved in politics, but that's not what her critics heard. The remark triggered a huge controversy. Unfortunately, Michelle seemed poised to become a liability for Barack Obama's presidential bid. She learned from her so called “mistake” and transformed herself from a potential campaign liability into America's newest sweetheart.
In the months since that rally in Milwaukee, she went from lightning rod to rock star, from the cover of The New Yorker to the cover of Vogue, from just plain fashionable to worldwide fashion icon. Mrs. Obama has emerged as an iconic cultural force who is very aware that she is a role model for women in general, mothers and African-Americans in particular. Her issues are military families, healthy eating, community service, work-life-family balance and opening up White House events so it is not just big shots who get to visit. With that agenda, the First Lady has avoided any controversy in her short tenure.
The biggest uproar occurred when Mrs. Obama met Britain's Queen Elizabeth II for the first time on April 1. The Queen put her arm around the First Lady-a rare public gesture-and Mrs. Obama returned the affection by draping her arm on the queen's shoulder. Comment turned from negatives to positives when it became clear that the Queen reached out for our FLOTUS exchanging gestures of high regard. Since that incident, the only issue being debated these days, silly as it seems, is whether she goes sleeveless too much and for the wrong occasions.
Her popularity ratings are sky high. Better than the poll numbers for POTUS, President Obama. She is as popular as the president, maybe more. Depending on the poll, she has approval ratings in the 60s and 70s. Practically It's not unusual for a first lady to be more popular than the president, but that usually happens further along. That it has happened so quickly for Mrs. Obama says a lot about how perceptions of her have changed.
On Day 99-Tuesday-Mrs. Obama will be part of an event rich in symbolism for women and African-Americans when she travels to Capitol Hill to unveil the bust of Sojourner Truth in Emancipation Hall of the U.S. Capitol. She will be the first African-American women to have a monument in the Capitol.
On Dec. 20, 2006, President Bush signed H.R. 4510 / Public Law 109-427 "To direct the Joint Committee on the Library to accept the donation of a bust depicting Sojourner Truth and to display the bust in a suitable location in the Capitol."
Sojourner Truth, a former slave born Isabella Baumfree who became a minister and womens suffrage activist, played an important role in African American and feminist history. Though she was a major figure in the suffrage movement, she was not part of the Portrait Monument in the Capitol, a 14,000 slab of sculpture with three white women--Lucretia Mott, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Susan B. Anthony. (That the monument to women who fought for suffrage was stuck in the Crypt of the Capitol, an undistinguished location, from 1921 until 1997 is another story.)
I look forward to keeping up with our FLOTUS during her stay at the White House and recording her activities in "Sweet Nothings".
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