Candidates' wives are supposed to sit cheerfully through their husbands' appearances.

I don't like corporate diversity workshops.

I would say that Barack Obama has always been a real optimist about what can be accomplished. He believes that government can be used to create systemic, long-term, real change. And the first lady is more of a skeptic.

Candidates' wives are supposed to sit cheerfully through their husbands' appearances.

You make real progress when somebody is honest enough to say something that's really uncomfortable. Of course when you're a candidate's wife and when you're first lady and the first African-American first lady to boot, that is very, very hard to do.

Interpreting anyone's marriage - a neighbor's, let alone the president's - is extremely difficult.

Michelle Obama has mostly stuck to pretty anodyne topics. She's anti-childhood obesity, she's pro-veteran.