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" Read our latest interview with Michelle Obama and see pictures of her greatest fashion moments. Michelle Obama is used to multitasking: For years, she&amp;#039;s juggled the roles of wife, mother, public servant, and mentor. Lately her days have moved at hyper-speed as she&amp;#039;s hit the campaign trail with her husband, Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama, while honoring her pledge to be away from home (and from her daughters Malia, 10, and Sasha, 7) overnight only once a week. But given her keen interest in communicating with American families as often as possible, she recently made time to talk with Good Housekeeping&amp;#039;s editor in chief, Rosemary Ellis, in Chicago \u2014 the Obamas&amp;#039; home base. In this exclusive interview, Michelle Obama discusses the matters that are closest to her heart, from our country&amp;#039;s most urgent causes to her husband&amp;#039;s best qualities to what every child needs to succeed in school.  Rosemary Ellis: So, when your husband told you that he wanted to run for President, how&amp;#039;d you feel about that? What was your first reaction?  Michelle Obama: My first reaction was, &amp;quot;Don&amp;#039;t \u2014 Please don&amp;#039;t.&amp;quot;  RE: That would be my first reaction.  MO: &amp;quot;Let&amp;#039;s not and say we did.&amp;quot; But after thinking about it, and, quite frankly, with every political run that Barack made, my instinct was to talk him out of it. I didn&amp;#039;t see the value in politics. I think I was probably cynical \u2014 like a lot of Americans \u2014 that you really can&amp;#039;t make change through the political process. So I spent a huge chunk of our marriage trying to convince him to do something more sensible to change the world like be a principal or write books. There are so many other things. But each and every time I confronted that doubt in my own mind, I started thinking beyond myself because the initial reaction is always how I would feel. It&amp;#039;s always the selfish &amp;quot;This is going to be hard on me, it&amp;#039;s going to be hard on my girls.&amp;quot; RE: Well, and it is. MO: It is. The only people who know what this is like are the handful of people who&amp;#039;ve had the pleasure of going through it. But then I start thinking beyond me. I always joke that I took off my &amp;quot;me&amp;quot; hat and put on my &amp;quot;us&amp;quot; hat. And I started thinking about where I would hope to see the country go for my girls. Then I started thinking about the type of person that I want to see in politics. And that always turned out to be a guy like Barack.  RE: Right. MO: So I thought, &amp;quot;Well, how can I stand in the way of something that could help so many people?&amp;quot; And I started thinking, I couldn&amp;#039;t make this sacrifice. I mean, I have had advantages. I&amp;#039;ve been blessed. I&amp;#039;ve been lucky to come from a middle-class background and be able to go to some of the best schools in the country. I&amp;#039;m prepared for this. So let&amp;#039;s give it a go. And if we can do something good, then the sacrifice is nothing in comparison. That&amp;#039;s my thought process. That was always the case. RE: That&amp;#039;s a big trajectory. MO: It&amp;#039;s a huge arc. RE: And here you are. MO: Here we are.   RE: I want to go back a little bit earlier. Talk to me about when you first met your husband. I know you didn&amp;#039;t fall hard immediately. But when you did fall in love with him, what were the qualities that you fell in love with? MO: When I first met him, I fell in deep like. And I didn&amp;#039;t expect to like him, because his background seemed so different. My reaction was like many reactions of people when you hear categories, names. He&amp;#039;s biracial. He grew up in Hawaii. He lived in Indonesia. I thought, &amp;quot;We have nothing in common.&amp;quot; But then we actually started talking. And right off the bat, not only was he handsome, but his life was so similar to mine in terms of the values. He was honest. He was friendly. He was approachable. He was humble. He cared about his family, talked a lot about his experiences. In so many ways, he was very familiar to me. Right off the bat, I said, &amp;quot;This guy can be my friend. We&amp;#039;re going to be friends.&amp;quot; And it was later on, when he pressed for a little more than friendship, that&amp;#039;s what I pushed away from. Because I thought, you know, we&amp;#039;re working together.  RE: You were his supervisor initially? MO: I was his summer adviser \u2014 which is pretty lightweight. But he was persistent. RE: We&amp;#039;ve noticed that about him.  MO: He is very persistent. And he was very clear about what he wanted and why, and I was impressed with that. But then I got introduced to him even more and the work he had done as a community organizer. That summer, he took me to a training that he did. And a lot of people don&amp;#039;t even know what community organizing is. But essentially, he spent years working in communities that had been devastated by the closing of steel plants, and working with a group of community groups to help residents figure out: &amp;quot;How do we make change? How do we move from despair to empowerment? How do we fix our schools and develop job training programs?&amp;quot; That&amp;#039;s the work he did for years \u2014 and I respected that choice. At that time, when you come out of Harvard and you&amp;#039;re working at a [big law] firm, you don&amp;#039;t meet people who&amp;#039;ve made those choices. RE: You meet the people who want to be big cheeses. MO: That&amp;#039;s right. And he never did. Even when he became the first black president of Harvard Law Review. Here I am in one of the top firms in the country. They were going nuts when he was selected. That&amp;#039;s the highest achievement that you can have [in law school]. He didn&amp;#039;t react. If he was honored, he was going to work hard through the job, but he didn&amp;#039;t want to be a Supreme Court clerk. He didn&amp;#039;t want to work for a high-paid firm. He always said that. And the fact that he was so consistent in walking into his life going &amp;quot;I went to school to help others. And I&amp;#039;m going to figure out how to use those gifts not to help myself but to help other people.&amp;quot; I was like, &amp;quot;This is a guy I could raise a family with.&amp;quot; RE: If he is elected, what&amp;#039;s your biggest hope for his tenure as President, and what&amp;#039;s your biggest fear? MO: My hope is that we can get the country on track domestically. For his tenure.  RE: Economically?  MO: Reinvest in education here in the United States so that we lay the groundwork to ensure that every child has access to a world-class education from preschool to beyond college. Make sure that folks have health care. There are so many basic things that we need to lay the foundation for from a domestic agenda that I hope that through his presidency and shifting the focus a bit that we can start making those investments. I hope that our image as a nation, in the world, is improved. I think that his trip abroad showed the hunger for a different kind of leadership. I think people around the world are truly excited and inspired not just by Barack but by his candidacy and how he&amp;#039;s run the race and his view of the role of this nation in the world. I&amp;#039;m hopeful that he can play a role to build some different bridges and change our image in the world. So those are some of the things that I hope for his tenure.  RE: In terms of fears? MO: Fear may be too strong of a word, but I think what I&amp;#039;ve just outlined \u2014 those are big agendas. And they take years to unravel. We have to unravel many, many years of lack of investment in all of these things. And it doesn&amp;#039;t happen overnight. And sometimes we get impatient in our nation and we think that when we say we want change, then change happens. But it&amp;#039;s going to require a lot of hard work \u2014 and not just from the next President of the United States. All of us are going to have to sacrifice and compromise. And we have to be ready to hear those hard messages \u2014 that it will take time, that it will require all of us to sacrifice. And I hope that we&amp;#039;re ready as a nation to make those sacrifices and compromises \u2014 no matter who&amp;#039;s the next President. RE: As a woman and as a mother, what are the campaign issues that you care about the most?  MO: Over the last year, I&amp;#039;ve spent a lot of time traveling around the country working on issues that face working mothers. Even if I just say that phrase, every woman that I know \u2014 no matter what their profession, whether they&amp;#039;re working outside of the home or working in the home, no matter their race or their political affiliation \u2014 they give that knowing smile [that you&amp;#039;re giving me]. You know, because we&amp;#039;re struggling to try to figure out how to balance it all. And we are now, I think, coming to grips with the fact that the way things are structured in this society is that it&amp;#039;s working against our success in raising and fulfilling a healthy family environment by at the same time fulfilling our goals as career women \u2014 or whatever else we want to be in this world. It&amp;#039;s very hard making that balance. And I want to be a voice for figuring out, &amp;quot;How do we provide more support?&amp;quot; so that families aren&amp;#039;t just surviving but they&amp;#039;re thriving. But over the last few months \u2014 within the last year \u2014 I&amp;#039;ve even honed that focus a bit more to military families.   RE: I know you&amp;#039;ve spent a lot of time with military families. MO: Oh, yeah. You know, you take the challenges that we face as working moms and you couple that with two, three, four years of duty, and you can only imagine the amount of stress. RE: We&amp;#039;re actually covering some of that in the magazine right now. What&amp;#039;s happening to moms who are separated from their kids; it&amp;#039;s criminal. There&amp;#039;s a lot of problem solving to do.  MO: We have to remember that when our troops go to war, our families go to war. And I think some of those voices get lost because we care about our troops, but we can do them a greater service if we can ensure that while those folks are all out fighting on behalf of our country, that their houses aren&amp;#039;t being foreclosed on, that they have health care, that their kids have good schools to go to. And that when they come back, maybe they can finish their own education, or send their kids to college. You know, that&amp;#039;s the way we honor the service of our men and women, and I just think we&amp;#039;re not doing enough. And if I can use this platform \u2014 if I&amp;#039;m so honored to have it \u2014 to bring voice to those concerns so that we&amp;#039;re aware of those challenges, and then be a part of pushing an agenda that really addresses making life a little bit easier, those are the kinds of things that I&amp;#039;d like to focus on.  RE: What would you say have been the single most challenging and the proudest moments \u2014 I&amp;#039;m curious about both \u2014 for you in the learning curve as a potential First Lady since your husband declared his candidacy? MO: That&amp;#039;s a good question \u2014 I don&amp;#039;t know if anybody has asked that. It is always my focus to make sure that I&amp;#039;m doing my job as a mom, you know? Barack and I both, no matter what&amp;#039;s going on in the campaign or what&amp;#039;s being said in the media, we&amp;#039;re always measuring our progress by how our kids are doing. And I think in that way, we&amp;#039;re probably not unlike most parents. We&amp;#039;re as good as our kids are. If they&amp;#039;re happy and whole, and they&amp;#039;re feeling confident and loved and they&amp;#039;re doing well in school, and they have friends, and, you know, they have a sense of centered-ness about themselves, then I feel like whatever else is happening, it doesn&amp;#039;t really matter. So I think we&amp;#039;ve done a good job at that, but I think about it every day. There isn&amp;#039;t a day that goes by. RE: Well, you have to! It&amp;#039;s not a once-a-week job.  MO: As a mom, I&amp;#039;m always wondering: Am I doing everything that I can do? So I think that&amp;#039;s always a challenge. But it would be a challenge even if I weren&amp;#039;t doing this \u2014 this just sort of escalates it. RE: This amplifies everything. MO: So in trying to keep things normal, what I&amp;#039;m doing right now is what every mother \u2014 what every parent \u2014 is doing: starting the school year in September! We gotta get books! My oldest daughter is starting middle school, so I&amp;#039;m emailing teachers and making sure that we know the new schedule, and where is her locker, and if we need a lock. I don&amp;#039;t want her to miss a beat. I want her to start school like every fifth grader will start \u2014 really prepared, [knowing] that Mommy didn&amp;#039;t forget a note, that she read every piece of material, that she&amp;#039;s got winter boots, and that her jeans fit.  RE: And that those jeans are cute.  MO: And that they&amp;#039;re cute \u2014 right! Right! Trying to anticipate projects, what they&amp;#039;re going to need \u2014 that&amp;#039;s how I&amp;#039;m spending my mental and emotional energy. Yes, we&amp;#039;ve got a convention coming up, but I&amp;#039;m trying to figure out the number to order the books online. That&amp;#039;s what I was doing all yesterday in between speech prep. I&amp;#039;m emailing teachers and the principal and all that. And I&amp;#039;m doing that along with the moms in her class. RE: So has that been the most challenging thing? MO: Oh, yeah. And it&amp;#039;s the guilt \u2014 feeling like I should be doing more with the campaign; I should be doing more with my girls. I should be exercising more. It&amp;#039;s just, you know, like all women...  RE: It&amp;#039;s the perennial dilemma.  MO: That&amp;#039;s exactly right.  RE: And the proudest, most rewarding part of the learning curve?  MO: This has been fun. Really! I have loved traveling the country. Every day [that] I go out has been a good day. People are open, they&amp;#039;re decent, they&amp;#039;re listening, they&amp;#039;re trying to figure this stuff out. Whether they like Barack or not, people have been kind in every part of the country. In every city, in every little town I&amp;#039;ve gone into, it has been a delight. That has just been a surprising joy for me, and I wish every American had a chance to do it. I think we would see ourselves differently as a country if we had a chance to go in other people&amp;#039;s communities and have a conversation and share some stories and recognize ourselves in one another because that familiarity is there. I feel at home \u2014 I&amp;#039;ve felt at home \u2014 in almost every community I&amp;#039;ve been in. I&amp;#039;ve recognized the food, the values. I&amp;#039;ve recognized the hard work, the sadness, the fears. All stuff that we share. RE: The pace is OK? MO: The pace is less of an issue because I&amp;#039;m a working mother \u2014 I&amp;#039;m used to this! I&amp;#039;m a working mother, I&amp;#039;ve been a corporate lawyer, I&amp;#039;ve worked, I&amp;#039;ve run a nonprofit organization. There&amp;#039;s always some level of pace. I&amp;#039;ve had days before of just crunch. This is just more intense. So you learn to adapt to it, just like most women do. We adapt! And I&amp;#039;ve adapted.  RE: Is there anything about having their dad run for President that particularly thrills or disturbs or upsets your girls? How are they? You guys have protected them amazingly well.  MO: I think they&amp;#039;re doing great. I don&amp;#039;t think there&amp;#039;s anything amazingly thrilling or amazingly disappointing because we don&amp;#039;t take them there. They still are observing this sort of like third-party kids. It&amp;#039;s like, how many kids really care about what their parents do for a living? When they come home, it&amp;#039;s, &amp;quot;Lemme me show you what I drew; lemme tell you what I did. This is my soccer game.&amp;quot; My kids, fortunately, are at the age where they&amp;#039;re still wonderfully self-centered. And as a result, what Dad does is neat, every now and then, and they want Dad to win, and they think Dad&amp;#039;ll be a great President. They will be sad for a second if he loses, but then the next day, they&amp;#039;ll say, &amp;quot;OK, what&amp;#039;re we doin&amp;#039; tomorrow?&amp;quot; And if they get too focused on this thing, then I think we need to make \u2014 I would want to make \u2014 adjustments.  RE: What has your policy been for helping them deal with some of the inevitable spotlight sprawl that goes on with them? Do you feel like being scrutinized so closely over these last few months has changed them at all?  MO: I&amp;#039;m watching it. The policy is that we talk honestly. If they have questions \u2014 and they don&amp;#039;t have many \u2014 we just keep the policy, &amp;quot;Is something bothering you?&amp;quot; You know, Malia heard something on the news when they were attacking my patriotism. I heard her asking Barack, &amp;quot;What&amp;#039;s this about?&amp;quot; and saying that Mom doesn&amp;#039;t love her country. And Barack was like, &amp;quot;That&amp;#039;s just part of politics. There are people who are going to say mean things,&amp;quot; and she said, &amp;quot;Yeah, that&amp;#039;s nuts.&amp;quot; He said, &amp;quot;That&amp;#039;s what this is.&amp;quot; It was interesting that she addressed him and not me \u2014 but I overheard it. RE: Do you think she&amp;#039;s feeling a little protective toward you? MO: Probably so \u2014 there was probably a level of that. But that really was the only glimpse of, &amp;quot;Hey, what&amp;#039;s that about?&amp;quot; that I&amp;#039;ve heard. And they&amp;#039;re like any kids. They could do without any of the attention. Sometimes the press attention is a little annoying, and we let them express that. Our thing is just be kind; don&amp;#039;t be rude. RE: What about you? In terms of press attention, what surprised you the most about the media attention, and has there been any surprising upside? MO: I&amp;#039;m not a big fan of the press about myself period, so I can&amp;#039;t say that there&amp;#039;s a huge upside. I think it&amp;#039;s important for people to get to know us as a family, so maybe that&amp;#039;s the upside. I&amp;#039;m always amazed at how people are interested in the personal stuff. RE: That&amp;#039;s the juicy stuff; come on! It&amp;#039;s the person behind the policy.  MO: Right \u2014 the extent to which people care about what we did on Saturday as opposed to what Barack&amp;#039;s position is on education. So that tends to be a bit surprising, but you adjust to that as well. RE: So I&amp;#039;m curious: Do you think this election has changed how we think about race? Why or why not? MO: I think absolutely it has. I think first of all, we are talking about issues that we have never talked about before out in the open. The good and the bad. I think we&amp;#039;ve talked more about race in this country than we have in a long time. I think that at least for the kids I know \u2014 not just African-American kids, but the kids that I come in contact with in my sphere \u2014 I think seeing different images of what is possible means something. And maybe you take it for granted when you&amp;#039;ve always seen yourself reflected in the world around you, but there are so many kids, because of their race, because of their economic background, or because of where they live or how they&amp;#039;ve grown up, that don&amp;#039;t see themselves. And when kids don&amp;#039;t see themselves, they don&amp;#039;t see their possibilities. And I think that as young people have watched Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama being treated as serious, viable candidates \u2014 people who could be President of the United States \u2014 it changes everything. And we&amp;#039;ve heard it! Barack has met people \u2014 teachers, in particular \u2014 who&amp;#039;ve said kids in their class are working a little harder. They&amp;#039;re having different conversations. I talked to Malia the night that Barack secured the nomination. I came home that night; it was one o&amp;#039;clock, because I wanted to get home and wake up with the girls. And we woke up and we do our ritual of getting into bed and chatting \u2014 so they&amp;#039;re sort of half asleep. And they&amp;#039;re like, &amp;quot;Ooh, this is a big night for Dad!&amp;quot; Pretty sure that he&amp;#039;s going to be the nominee. And they&amp;#039;re like, &amp;quot;Ooh, that&amp;#039;s nice.&amp;quot; Little Sasha&amp;#039;s like, &amp;quot;Ooh, good, Daddy won.&amp;quot; I said, &amp;quot;Well, do you guys realize what a big deal this is? Do you realize there has never been an African-American that has been a presidential nominee?&amp;quot; And Malia, our oldest, said, &amp;quot;Well, yeah, I can believe that. Because black people were slaves and they couldn&amp;#039;t vote for such a long time and of course this is a big deal.&amp;quot; She said it without missing a beat \u2014 &amp;quot;just like it would&amp;#039;ve been a big deal if Hillary Clinton had won. Because women weren&amp;#039;t able to vote.&amp;quot; So yeah! She gets it. She&amp;#039;s 10.  RE: Smart girl. MO: There are a lot of smart kids in this country all looking at this stuff. I think that&amp;#039;s a thing we have to remember: Kids are smart. They see the images that we put out \u2014 good and bad. Kids are watching this thing really closely. And they&amp;#039;re sort of getting a sense of who we are as a nation, what we care about, and what we value. It&amp;#039;s been interesting to watch so many young people become inspired to get involved. So yeah: Things are changing in a big way. At least I see them.  RE: If you could go back and change one comment that you made during the past year about your husband or the campaign or yourself, what would it be? MO: I wouldn&amp;#039;t change anything. It&amp;#039;s a matter of clarifying \u2014 being more precise in statements \u2014 because things get misconstrued if you leave out one word or if you use the wrong intonation. But I think the substance of everything I&amp;#039;ve said has come from a point of honesty and truth. And that&amp;#039;s one thing I&amp;#039;ve always liked about Barack: He is always himself in this process, and I&amp;#039;ve always said that. We say that to each other. We want to be able to recognize ourselves when we come away from this. I think I try to be as honest and as open as I can be so that people measure who I am. So that if I am the next First Lady, there will be no surprises. RE: What you see is what you get. MO: I just feel like that&amp;#039;s what candidates owe the country. The good, the bad, the ups and downs, the jokes, and then at least you can measure whether this is something I like as opposed to, &amp;quot;Let me tell you this and then when I get in there, I&amp;#039;ll be something totally different.&amp;quot; And it&amp;#039;s very hard to maintain consistency when you&amp;#039;re not you. And I want to be consistent \u2014 I want to know that what comes out of my mouth is whatever truth that I know. So in that way, I think I&amp;#039;ve tried to be that. So I don&amp;#039;t know that I would change anything substantively.  RE: So let me ask you this: You don&amp;#039;t even regret the now-oft-quoted comment that you made about being proud to be an American?  MO: It&amp;#039;s a mischaracterization that has nothing to do with the intended statement. I am proud of my country \u2014 I&amp;#039;ve always been. Nowhere but here could my story be possible. My father was a pump operator who got up every day and went to work, earned a minor living and sent us to Princeton. And now I am raising [his] granddaughters who will have access to things that I could&amp;#039;ve never dreamed of.  RE: And here you are. MO: And here I am. So that&amp;#039;s not the issue. My goal is to make sure that people know who I am. And I think if people know who I am, and they know who Barack is, and they know our story, and they can feel our souls, and understand our intent...I think America doesn&amp;#039;t expect people to be perfect. I think they just want people to be honest. They want to know that they can trust them. They want to know that they share their values. And I know that the values I was raised with are the ones that I see reflected in the folks that I&amp;#039;m meeting out there in the country.  RE: You were just talking about values and how you grew up. So the two questions I want to ask you about that: What gives you strength during tough times? Where does the balance come from? What do you hold on to? MO: My values. Family, faith, the values that I was raised with, the messages from my parents. Those life lessons that you learn growing up: Work hard, treat people with respect, tell the truth. Those are the kind of things that I fall back on \u2014 knowing that you have to trust that if folks want something different and they see it, they&amp;#039;ll work for it.  RE: Getting back to something you said a minute ago: Tell me a little bit about the role that faith plays in your own life and in your family&amp;#039;s life.  MO: I grew up on both sides of the family with a strong connection to faith and religion. And we&amp;#039;re trying to give our girls a basic foundation, understanding, and respect for higher being. So that is important to me; it&amp;#039;s been important to Barack and I in raising our kids. It just sort of is what it is because it&amp;#039;s what I grew up with.  RE: Are there popular perceptions about you \u2014 or about Cindy McCain, for that matter \u2014 that you think are accurate? MO: I can&amp;#039;t speak for Cindy McCain, and actually, it&amp;#039;s hard to speak for myself because I&amp;#039;m not reading the press. So it&amp;#039;s hard to react to what I think other people are thinking, because one thing I&amp;#039;ve learned also is that there are two conversations that go on in this kind of process. There is one that goes on in the press, and then there&amp;#039;s one that goes on on the ground. And all I can do is judge by how people react to me when they see me, when they meet me. Based on what I get back from people, I think folks (hopefully) are finding that I&amp;#039;m friendly, that I care about my community, that I care deeply about our children. And that&amp;#039;s the only reason why I would agree to do something like this: Because I think we can do better. And I want, as desperately as any mother does, to have a leader who&amp;#039;s going to push us not just to be in a different policy position, but for us to be a different nation, to treat one another differently, to lay a different foundation of what truth and honesty means so that we&amp;#039;re showing our kids different possibilities.  RE: So that leads into my last question. We talked a little bit about what your guiding principles are when it comes to family balance and how important the priority that you place on your children&amp;#039;s well-being. Good Housekeeping has twenty-six million readers \u2014 one out of four moms in this country read the magazine.  MO: I&amp;#039;m one of those! RE: So tell me why specifically this average American mom \u2014 the one who&amp;#039;s maxed out in time and energy, is worried about her own or her spouse&amp;#039;s job security, is trying to pay off her mortgage or save for college \u2014 why should she want your husband to be President?  MO: Because we can&amp;#039;t keep doing the same thing that we&amp;#039;ve been doing in this nation and expect a different outcome. We&amp;#039;re going in the wrong direction as a nation. And people are feeling it. And I think the majority of your readership is probably working harder for less. And they probably have a really difficult idea of figuring out how they&amp;#039;re going to lay out their future \u2014 how they&amp;#039;re going to educate their kids, send them to college, and retire, and what&amp;#039;s going to happen with their health care. Every American I know knows someone who is in a precarious situation because of health care. Most people are really deathly afraid that we will not end this war, and they don&amp;#039;t want to see us be a nation at war \u2014 particularly as [they&amp;#039;re] thinking about the future of [their] kids. So I would just urge people to really think about the issues that matter most to them, because Barack is the only candidate \u2014 the only one in this race \u2014 who has a real, clear plan for moving us to a different place.  But he can&amp;#039;t do it alone, which means that even as the readers are busy and tired, they&amp;#039;re going to have to really listen. They&amp;#039;re going to have to do their own research. They can&amp;#039;t count on just the regular news sources. They have to dig deeper, go on the Websites, attend a rally, read a story. Don&amp;#039;t make assumptions, because there are so many misconceptions. There are lies being told, so people are going to have to educate themselves and be open to the truth. And then they&amp;#039;re going to have to vote. That&amp;#039;s the ticket \u2014 that&amp;#039;s our power for change. When it&amp;#039;s all said and done, we cannot, as women, as mothers, say we&amp;#039;re too busy to get involved. And we&amp;#039;ve seen that in this election. More and more women are coming out, whether they were for Hillary or Barack. We&amp;#039;re seeing, at least on the Democratic side, this surge of engagement \u2014 and that&amp;#039;s tremendous. Women will make the difference in this race. So I just want to make sure that when it&amp;#039;s all said and done, whoever is sitting in the White House is a person that we&amp;#039;re excited about, that we think is going to get us to the next level.  And I would also urge people to think beyond themselves, and to think about our kids. There&amp;#039;s a difference in what the future looks like for us, how we envision that, and what we&amp;#039;re thinking about not just in the next 20 or 30 years but in the next 50 years \u2014 the next 60 years. What kind of environment are we handing over to our kids? What happens if the vast majority of kids in this country aren&amp;#039;t educated? What happens if we don&amp;#039;t have a strong foreign policy and we don&amp;#039;t have good relations with our neighbors \u2014 even the ones that we don&amp;#039;t always agree with? What happens when we turn that world over to the four-year-olds who will then run the country? That&amp;#039;s what keeps me motivated. That&amp;#039;s what gives me energy. When I get tired in this campaign, I start thinking about my daughters. And the only person in this race who I would want to lead for my daughters is Barack. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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