Michelle Obama used an opening-night convention speech to take Americans inside the White House, asking them for the patience to give her husband a second term and contrasting President Barack Obama's life experience with Republican Mitt Romney's.
'I have seen firsthand that being president doesn't change who you are -- no -- it reveals who you are,' the first lady said Tuesday in her address to the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, North Carolina.
The crises of Obama's first term 'tested my husband in ways I never could have imagined,' she said. 'He reminds me that we are playing a long game here and that change is hard, and change is slow, and it never happens all at once.' Michelle Obama's speech, without saying Romney's name, drew subtle yet unmistakable contrasts to the Republican presidential nominee's background as the son of an executive and politician and his business career in finance. Romney, former Massachusetts governor and a co-founder of Boston-based private equity firm Bain Capital LLC, has a net worth that is estimated between $190 million and $250 million.
The first lady described seeing her husband in the White House 'in those quiet moments late at night, hunched over his desk, poring over the letters people have sent him' about their woes. 'For Barack, success isn't about how much money you make, it is about the difference you make in people.