Obama and wife Michelle at a recent campaign event (Photo Credit: AP)
Barack Obama told an Iowa audience Friday that his wife Michelle thinks he should not run for president again if he loses in 2008.
“One of the things I offer in this race is that we still remember what it means to be normal," said the Illinois senator.
"My wife and I were talking the other day. And she said 'We're not doing this again'. And those of you who met her know she doesn't mince words,” said Obama. “She meant that in eight years, I'm not sure we'll be the same people we are now."
He said that he and his wife had only recently finished paying off their own student loans and started saving for their kids' college education. He also said that, until recently, he would do the family's grocery shopping himself. He said Michele told him, "eight years from now we will have lost touch with what ordinary Americans are going through" and that "we'll be in a different orbit."
"I think when you're in Washington for a long time you lose touch" and "it becomes harder to relinquish power,” he added.
But he told the audience in this blue-collar town, "my wife still shops at Target."
In the new issue of Vanity Fair, Michelle Obama tells a reporter that when it comes to her husband's White House bid, “it’s now or never.”
“We’re not going to keep running and running and running, because at some point you do get the life beaten out of you. It hasn’t been beaten out of us yet," she tells the magazine. "We need to be in there now, while we’re still fresh and open and fearless and bold. You lose some of that over time. Barack is not cautious yet; he’s ready to change the world, and we need that.”
Obama was responding to question from an undecided voter on executive power, and whether the senator would be willing to relinquish some of the power that President Bush has accrued.
Approached after the event, the undecided voter who asked the question said he hopes if Obama loses this time that he does run again: "I think he could make a good President," said Paul Kessler. But he told CNN that he's still uncommitted: "I'm going to read every candidates' website and decide on policy. Not emotion."
UPDATE: Later in an interview with CNN, Obama wouldn't say if his comments suggested he would not run for president again if he were to lose his current bid.
"Well, I intend to reelection after my first term," he said with a smile.
CNN.com
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2007/12/29/obama-my-wife-doesnt-want-another-white-house-run/
