Much like calls for Oprah 2020, there’s been a motion for another strong, influential woman to lead our nation in the years to come: the former first lady. If you search for Michelle Obama 2020 on Facebook, you get hundreds of pages pledging support with tens of thousands of likes. So, Michelle Obama for president? What does she have to say?
Michelle Obama 2020?
Oprah claims that she doesn’t “have the DNA” to run for Oval Office, and that she’s “not interested.” But what about Michelle Obama for president?
Obama spoke at the United State of Women summit in Los Angeles Saturday, answering questions from the crowd and “Blackish” star Tracee Ellis Ross, who acted as moderator.
Though not mentioning Trump by name, the former first lady spoke of the 2016 election: “When the most qualified person running was a woman, and look what we did instead, I mean that says something about where we are. … [I]f we’re not comfortable with the notion that a woman could be our president compared to…what, then we have to have those conversations with ourselves as women.”
But when someone yelled out from the audience, “you run,” Obama was quick to shut down the idea.
“That’s not the answer, either,” she stated. “When I hear people say, ‘You run,’ it’s part of the problem. We still didn’t get ‘Yes we can’ right. It’s not yes you can, it’s yes we can. And until we get that right, it doesn’t matter who runs. And look, I don’t think I’m any different from Hillary.”
However, she vowed to continue working with young people through the Obama Foundation because there’s strength in numbers: “This is why I’m not going to run for president. Because I think it’s a better investment to invest in creating thousands of mes.”
“You can always find hope,” she told the crowd. “I find hope in all these beautiful young people. … You don’t have to be first lady or president or run for anything to make change.”
Michelle Obama 2020? What else has she said?
Back in April, she made similar comments regarding supporters’ pleas for a Michelle Obama 2020 run.
At the 39th annual Simmons Leadership Conference in Boston last month, she told the audience, “The reason why I don’t want to run for president — and I can’t speak for Oprah [Winfrey] — but my sense is that, first of all, you have to want the job.”
“And you can’t just say, ‘Well, you’re a woman, run,'” Obama explained. “We just can’t find the women we like and ask them to do it, because there are millions of women who are inclined and do have the passion for politics.” She went on to say that when it comes to this “passion for politics” she does not have it.
“Just because I gave a good speech, I’m smart and intelligent doesn’t mean I should be the next president,” Obama concluded. “That’s not how we should pick the president. That’s been our problem. We’re very shortsighted about how we think about selecting the commander-in-chief.”
“First we have to cultivate young women as leads and find them, because getting into the political arena is complicated.” @MichelleObama on leadership development. #SLCBoston
— SimmonsLEADS (@SimmonsLeads) April 5, 2018
