Michelle Obama walked onto the stage at George Mason University in the casual manner of someone who isn’t running for office.
“You guys have been standing up for a while, right? So let’s start talking about some stuff,” the first lady said Friday in her first campaign appearance.
That stuff was a speech that in part defended her husband’s record and also attacked Donald Trump – without mentioning his name.
“I don’t know if many of you were old enough to remember . . . but back then people had all kinds of questions about what kind of President Barack would be,” Michelle Obama said.
“And then, of course, there were those who questioned – and continued to question for the past eight years, up through this very day – whether my husband was even born in this country,” she said, referring to Trump’s past statements about her husband being born in Kenya. “Barack Obama has answered those questions by going high when they go low.”
Earlier on Friday, Trump held an event where he said, in brief remarks, that Barack Obama was born in America before exiting the stage at his new Washington hotel.
The Fairfax crowd of mostly college students broke out in a “four more years” chant to Michelle Obama’s celebration of her husband’s record.
“It is so hard to believe that it is less than two months until Election Day and that my family is almost at the end of our time in the White House,” she said.
The first lady halfheartedly tried to stop the chant.
“You have me and Barack working on your behalf for the rest of our lives,” Obama said.
After joking about needing a new job and cleaning out the White House in a few months “to get our security deposit back,” she turned to Trump.
“A president can hire the best advisers on Earth but let me tell you, five advisers will give five different opinions,” Obama said in reference to Trump’s statements that he doesn’t need to worry about policy details because he will surround himself with top advisers.
“We also need someone who is steady and measured. . . . Trust me, a candidate is not going to suddenly change once they get into office. Just the opposite, in fact. . . . They’re the leader of the world’s largest economy, the commander in chief of the most powerful military force on Earth. With every word they utter, they can start wars, crash markets, change the course of this planet.”
Ten minutes into her remarks, the first lady mentioned Hillary Clinton.
“When she didn’t win the presidency in 2008, she didn’t throw in the towel,” Obama said. “See, because when she gets knocked down, she doesn’t complain or cry foul, she gets right back up.”
Obama urged students to knock on doors and register others, and she used math to argue that every vote matters.
“Back in 2012, Barack won Virginia by about 150,000 votes,” she said. “Now, that may sound like a lot. But when you break that down, the difference between winning and losing this state was only 31 votes per precinct.”
Democrats will need large margins in strongholds like Fairfax County to win Virginia. Barack Obama won Fairfax in 2012 with just under 60 percent of the vote, and 260,000 of his 1.9 million votes across the commonwealth came from the county.
Alesha Smith, a George Mason sophomore sporting an “I’m With Her” sticker, wasn’t 100 percent sold on voting for Clinton.
In fact, she’s leaning toward Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson but could be swayed to vote for Clinton.
But the Maryland resident had waited nearly six hours to see the first lady.
“I mean, it’s Michelle Obama; she’s basically the president,” Smith said.
Alex Daugherty: 202-383-6049, @alextdaugherty
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