RERUNS: THE MMTP ARCHIVE

Episode 26: Madam First Lady

By Lee Molloy

For our reality series Make Me The President, we scoured the country to find the most power-hungry, Machiavellian and downright unattractive people in the United States of America (“The Greatest Nation On Earth” ™) to find the person who could raise the most money, be willing to break the most promises and offer the most bland reason to become — The President.

This week on MMTP:

We will take a little time out to look at the two women who are standing by their men as they compete for the biggest prize in the world — MMTP champion.

Michelle LaVaughn Robinson was born in Chicago in 1964 to what she describes (even though her father was earning over $40k a year) as a working-class family. She graduated from Whitney M. Young Magnet High School in 1981. Whitney Young is considered the most prestigious public school in Chicago and consistently scores in the top 10 percent of both public and private schools in the country, with 99 percent of its graduates going on to college. Michelle was no exception and won herself a place at Princeton University, from which she graduated with a degree in sociology in 1985.

Showing a fondness for ivy, Michelle went from Princeton to Harvard Law School. Here she started to get her political activist chops by taking part in political demonstrations advocating the hiring of minority professors. She graduated Harvard Law with her J.D. in 1988.

From there, she went to work for the Chicago law firm of Sidney Austin, where she focused on marketing and intellectual property. It was while working at this firm in 1989 that she was asked to mentor the only other African-American recruit to the firm — a tall, skinny black kid with a funny name, Barack Obama. And in a turn of events that now seems almost too cinematic to be true, she finally gave in and went out with him on a date to see Spike Lee’s seminal movie Do the Right Thing.

Michelle and Barack married in October 1992 and have since produced two daughters, Malia and Sasha. While raising the girls, Michelle has continued to be a formidable working mother and currently serves as the vice president for Community and External Affairs at the University of Chicago Hospitals.

Since her husband decided to compete in MMTP, Michelle Obama has been a somewhat polarizing figure. The most controversial moment came during a campaign event in Milwaukee, Wis., when she said, “For the first time in my adult life, I am proud of my country because it feels like hope is finally making a comeback.”

She then slightly altered her speech that same evening in Madison, saying, “For the first time in my adult lifetime, I'm really proud of my country, and not just because Barack has done well, but because I think people are hungry for change.” The addition of the word ‘really’ to the speech, of course, qualifies the statement and makes it a little less offensive to patriotic Americans.

Even so, many conservative pundits and politicians attacked Michelle’s use of words, including Cindy McCain, who said in an obvious dig during a campaign speech, “I am proud of my country. I don’t know about you — if you heard those words earlier, I am very proud of my country.” Yet one famous Team Republican member, First Lady Laura Bush, gave Michelle a break when she said, “I think she probably meant I'm ‘more proud,’ you know, is what she really meant. I mean, I know that, and that's one of the things you learn and that's one of the really difficult parts both of running for president and for being the spouse of the president, and that is, everything you say is looked at and in many cases misconstrued.”

Cindy Lou Hensley, who was born in Phoenix, Ariz., in 1954, couldn’t be more different from her Team Democrats counterpart. As the only child and heir to her father’s king of beers distribution fortune, Cindy was raised like a princess. She graduated from Central High School in Phoenix in 1972, and was a rodeo queen in ’68. Cindy went on to attend the University of Southern California, where she received a bachelor’s degree in education and a master’s in special education. While attending USC, Cindy was cheerleader and a sorority sister in Kappa Alpha Theta — not that there’s anything wrong with that.

She then went to work as a special education teacher, and worked with children with disabilities at the Agua Fria High School in Avondale, Ariz.

Her next role was as the mistress of adulterer John McCain after meeting him at a military event in Hawaii. They married a month after McCain’s divorce in May 1980, and she made him sign a prenuptial agreement. Well, who could blame her?

The McCains then had three children — Meghan, Jack and Jimmy — before adopting a fourth, Bridget, from Mother Teresa’s orphanage in Bangladesh after Cindy’s visit as part of the American Voluntary Medical Team.

Cindy McCain founded the AVMT — a nonprofit organization for doctors and nurses to provide emergency medical care to disaster-struck or war-torn countries — in 1988. But in 1992, she was ratted out by one of her own AVMT directors, Tom Gosinski, for stealing drugs — Percocet and Vicodin — to fuel her addiction to the painkillers. Her parents staged an intervention for her, and she attended rehab to overcome her three-year junkie adventure.

Cindy is now chair of her late father’s company, Hensley & Co., and has an estimated fortune of $100 million. She has been a frequent flyer on the campaign trail, often lending her husband her private jet to fly to campaign events.

Tune in next week to discover which of these two women will join her husband in becoming a member of the exclusive Air Force One mile-high club.

Hail to the Chief!