Michelle Obama says change takes time, urges four more years

Reuters

Last Updated 04 May 2018, 13:11 IST

U.S. first lady Michelle Obama waves before addressing the first session of the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, North Carolina, September 4, 2012. during first day of the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, North Carolina September 4, 2012. Reuters

First lady Michelle Obama acknowledged on Tuesday that the change her husband Barack Obama sought in his White House campaign four years ago has proven difficult but urged voters to give him another term to fix the weak U.S. economy.

"He reminds me that we are playing a long game here, and that change is hard, and change is slow, and it never happens all at once," she told the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, North Carolina. "But eventually we get there. We always do," she said.

With Democrats anxious about a race with Republican Mitt Romney that is too close to call nine weeks before the November 6 election, Mrs. Obama urged party activists to rally around the president.

"We must work like never before, and we must once again come together and stand together for the man we can trust to keep moving this great country forward, my husband, our president, Barack Obama," she said.

Under fire for high unemployment, Obama wants to use the convention to seize the political spotlight back from Romney who held his own nominating convention in Tampa last week.

A host of speakers at the gathering in Charlotte attacked Romney for his business record, refusal to release more tax returns and for spearheading a Republican "war on women."

ATTACK ON ROMNEY

The Democrats even choreographed a swipe at the former executive from beyond the grave, by playing a video of late Senator Ted Kennedy getting the better of Romney during a debate in the 1994 election campaign for Kennedy's Senate seat.

Michelle Obama's address was the Democrats' answer to Romney's wife, Ann, who gave a highly personal account of her husband in trying to present a more human side to him at the Republicans' convention.

"For Barack, success isn't about how much money you make, it's about the difference you make in people's lives," she said about Romney whose fortune from private equity has been a focus of her husband's campaign.

"He was the guy whose proudest possession was a coffee table he'd found in a dumpster, and whose only pair of decent shoes was a half size too small," she said.

It was a night for women at the convention as the Democrats pressed their advantage with female voters, a gender gap that is a sore point for Republicans particularly after remarks by conservative Missouri Senate candidate Todd Akin about "legitimate rape."

Lily Ledbetter, the tough-talking Alabama advocate for equal pay for women, took the stage, as did former veterans official Tammy Duckworth and many others to criticize Romney and talk up Obama.