Michelle Obama Says Husband An Ordinary Man

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(EVANSVILLE) - Michelle Obama is fighting back against criticism that her husband is elitist.

The wife of Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama campaigned Wednesday in Evansville, Indianapolis and Anderson.

In Evansville, she painted her husband as an ordinary man whose family once lived on food stamps and said they both understand the plight of working America.

She also drew heavily on her upbringing in a working-class family in Chicago, noting that her family lived on her father's city salary while her mother stayed home.

Barack Obama has drawn fire from rivals Hillary Rodham Clinton and John McCain since he told donors at a private San Francisco fundraiser,

But the truth is, is that, our challenge is to get people persuaded that we can make progress when there's not evidence of that in their daily lives.

You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not.

And it's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.

Um, now these are in some communities, you know. I think what you'll find is, is that people of every background -- there are gonna be a mix of people, you can go in the toughest neighborhoods, you know working-class lunch-pail folks, you'll find Obama enthusiasts.

And you can go into places where you think I'd be very strong and people will just be skeptical. The important thing is that you show up and you're doing what you're doing.

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