Axelrod: ‘I’ll bet everything’ against Michelle Obama running for office
Michelle Obama won’t run for political office despite her star turn on the 2016 campaign trail, one of President Obama’s close confidants said Friday.
“People say to me all the time well, ‘Do you think she might run for office sometime?’” David Axelrod, chief strategist for Obama’s 2008 and 2012 presidential campaigns, told conservative talk radio host Hugh Hewitt. “I would bet everything that I own against that prospect.”
The first lady has earned plaudits as the Democrats’ most valuable player for her stirring speeches on behalf of the party’s presidential nominee, Hillary Clinton.
But Axelrod said the first lady’s longstanding dislike of partisan politics all but rules out a future political run of her own.
“She was a reluctant conscript to politics,” he said of Obama. “I mean, when Michelle, you know, she had her own sort of professional life, and she was very committed, as she is now, to the kids.”
He also ruled out the possibility of Obama, who previously worked as a lawyer, seeking a judicial appointment.
The operative said Obama “gave up a lot” to boost her husband’s bids for the White House and is campaigning for Clinton not because she is “someone who loves politics,” but “because she feels passionately about the choice here.”
The first lady is “going to be very happy to get her life back when this is over,” he said.
Axelrod predicted she will “recede a little bit from the public eye” and will be “trying to help on the issues that she cares about.”
Obama’s campaign appearances this year have stoked speculation about her political future.
Her takedown of Republican nominee Donald Trump was one of the most memorable speeches of the 2016 cycle, and she also received praise for her address at the Democratic National Convention, when she spoke personally about being part of the first black family to live in the White House.
Clinton’s campaign dispatched Obama to Arizona on Thursday, believing that she could help move the reliable red state back into the Democrats’ column for the first time since 1996.
Some Illinois Democrats are hoping the first lady has a change of heart about politics.
“There is no person in politics that I think Democrats, independents, and Republicans would love to see take on public service more than the first lady,” Thomas Bowen, a former adviser to Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, told National Journal.
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