As President Biden’s poll numbers get weaker and weaker, the Democratic Party at some point will likely turn to Michelle Obama.
Here’s how it works: If a candidate quits or dies after having secured a majority of delegates, the 200-member Democratic National Committee chooses the nominee.
The earned delegates become irrelevant.
Many Republicans reflexively recite the mantra that Michelle Obama is enjoying her life, isn’t political — and won’t likely to step in.
Let’s not kid anyone: Michelle Obama is very political.
And always has been.
She’s the daughter of a Chicago Democratic Party precinct captain, Fraser Robinson.
She’s written about making the rounds with her father from age four, visiting homes in her area to get out the black vote for the white liberal Chicago Democratic Party machine.
In high school, Michelle was elected to the student council as class treasurer.
And she befriended Santita Jackson, the daughter of Jesse Jackson, and has said, “I grew up in that man’s house.”
Yes, Michelle spent much time at Jesse Jackson’s house while he was preparing to run for president. “I’ve seen it all,” Michelle said of the experience.
At Princeton University, Michelle was elected to the board of the Third World Center, a radical black activist fraternity.
Michelle and Barack Obama had a mutual professor at Harvard, though in different years, named Charles Ogletree.
When Barack was elected president, Ogletree told TMZ that between Barack and Michelle, he would have thought Michelle more likely to run for president than Barack.
Michelle says she fell in love with Barack after being impressed with a political speech he made in a church.
In Chicago, she befriended another very political person, the former head of the Weather Underground domestic-terrorist group Bernardine Dohrn.
Michelle worked with her for two years at the Sidley Austin law firm and had dinners at her home with Bill Ayers for years, right up until the time Barack ran for US Senate in 2004.
Dohrn was Michelle’s first guest speaker at Public Allies, the community organizing group she ran. Yes, like Barack, Michelle was also a community organizer for three years.
After working in a law firm for two years, Michelle went to work for Chicago’s Mayor Richard Daley, becoming assistant planning commissioner.
On the 2008 campaign trail, Michelle spoke to huge adoring crowds in stadiums across the country, trumpeting word for word the anti-American rhetoric she’d learned from Dohrn.
The media largely ignored the nastiness until Michelle proclaimed, upon Barack winning a primary, “For the first time in my life, I’m proud of my country.”
This brought Michelle a media backlash.
The next day, she hired a speechwriter and declared, “I hate politics. I just want to be the mom in chief.”
Her claim earned Michelle an immediate respite and reshaped her public persona from a highly political anti-American radical into a mom who hates politics.
To a degree, Michelle was being truthful: Many politicians hate politics; it’s grueling and annoying.
But they put up with it because they love power.
A Michelle Obama candidacy would solve two major problems for Democrats.
First, she can bring back the black voters who have been steadily hemorrhaging to Donald Trump.
Second, the very unpopular Kamala Harris would be leapfrogged without any repercussions from the minority community.
Seeing Joe Biden’s advanced age, immense unpopularity and terrible polls, Democratic leaders such as Barack Obama and David Axelrod are coming to fear he’ll lose in November.
In the wings, meanwhile, waits the very political Michelle Obama.
And if you doubt it, take a look at the two-part statement she tweeted Jan. 7, 2021, a day after Capitol riot, airing her gripes about Donald Trump, the rioters, the media and others.
“I hurt for our country,” she declared.
But “even in the darkness, there are glimmers of hope.”
Michelle’s Jan. 7 Twitter manifesto deserves to be read in full.
If nothing else, that alone should prove Michelle Obama is a very political woman — and has her sights on the White House in 2024.
Andrew Stein (D) served as New York City Council president, 1986-94. Author Joel Gilbert, a Los Angeles-based film producer, wrote the book and film, “Michelle Obama 2024: Her Real Life Story and Plan for Power.”