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Michelle Obama says her husband offers U.S. a new kind of leadership

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By Steven Martens | Saturday, November 17, 2007 |

Larry Fisher/Quad-City Times Michelle Obama, left, talks with Sharon Brown, center, and Judy Hyde both from Clinton, Iowa, after campaigning for her husband Wednesday at the Operahouse Theatre in DeWitt, Iowa. Buy this Photo

DeWITT, Iowa — Michelle Obama talked about her and her husband’s working-class upbringing Wednesday and about how Barack Obama is the kind of leader working-class Americans could trust.

She stopped in DeWitt during a trip Wednesday through eastern Iowa that also included Davenport and Monticello, speaking to about 60 supporters of her husband’s campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination at DeWitt’s Operahouse Theater.

She talked about how her father, a city employee, worked hard to provide a home and education for her and her brother, both of whom attended public schools before going to college at Princeton University. She said he wanted little for himself, only to be able to provide for his family. She said many Americans share her father’s dream.

“That little dream of my father’s has become an impossibility for most Americans,” she said.

Michelle Obama said few American families are able to get by on one income, as her family did, and many parents find themselves struggling to pay off the loans for their own educations as they try to save for their children’s educations at the same time.

“I know in my heart that we need a fundamentally different kind of leadership,” she said.

She described her husband as a man who believes in treating people with honesty and respect, and who has the ability to unite people to achieve common goals.

“What he will do every day is everything he said he would do,” she said.

Doug Yegge of DeWitt said he had seen U.S. Sen. Barack Obama speak before, and said Michelle Obama did a great job of relating her husband’s message.

“I think she is his gift,” Yegge said.

Judy Doughty of Clinton, a local precinct captain for Obama’s chief rival, U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton, said she found Michelle Obama’s honesty refreshing.

Steven Martens can be contacted at (563) 659-2595 or smartens@qctimes.com. Comment on this story at qctimes.com.