By Johnette Jernigan and Kathy Wray Coleman, Cleveland Urban News.Com
Cleveland, Ohio -Michelle Obama (pictured) told a cheering crowd at Cuyahoga Community College Metro Campus in Cleveland, Oh. on Monday evening that she knows President Barack Obama not only as a president but as a man whose vision for America was shaped long before he won the White House in 2008.
“Barack knows the American dream because he has lived it,” said Mrs. Obama."'I have seen up close and personal what being president is like."
Some 2,000 people came out for the get-out-the-vote rally, according to Claire Rasacco, vice president of the Tri-C Metro Department of Government and Community Relations.
The eldest Obama supporter there made it clear that she believes the country is moving forward under the leadership of President Obama.
“I’m a lifelong Democrat, and I pray for the president all of the time,” said Marie Lukacevic, a retired pediatric and maternity nurse who turned 101 this year. “I support the president because he is for the general public and healthcare.”
Before delivering her speech the first lady had met to thank Obama for America Campaign volunteers and other Cleveland area supporters, including former East Cleveland Councilman Charles E. Bibb Sr., Cuyahoga County Councilman Julian Rogers (D-10), former Cuyahoga County Commissioner Mary Boyle, Meryl Johnson, and Edwina Moss, the wife of retired Olivet Institutional Baptist Church senior pastor the Rev. Dr. Otis Moss, Jr.
Michelle Obama talked jobs, education, domestic policy, health care, women’s rights, and getting out the vote in Ohio.
“If we win in Ohio, we will be well on our way to putting Barack Obama back in the White House for four more years,” the first lady said. “When it comes to standing up for our rights or opportunities we know that my husband will always have your back.”
Mrs. Obama said that her husband has done an excellent job as a president, even though former president George W. Bush and the Republicans handed him "an economy in rapid decline.”
She said that Mitt Romney, on the other hand, is promoting Republican-centered tax policies to help the rich get richer on the backs of the middle class and the working poor, and that “teachers and firefighters should not pay more taxes than millionaires and billionaires.”
Others that came to hear the first lady include Congresswomen Marsha L. Fudge (D-11) and Marcie Kaptur (D-9), state Sen. Nina Turner (D-25), Cleveland Ward 6 Councilwoman Mamie Mitchell, and the Reverends Jimmy Gates and Larry Harris.
Turner, who is one of three state senators representing the Cleveland metropolitan area and its eastern suburbs, said that Ohio can make a difference in the election and that who better to promote the president than the first lady herself.
“She knows the measure of a man,” said Turner, before leaving the rally to appear for a segment on the Rev. Al Sharpton's nightly talk show on MSNBC. “It’s great to have the first lady in the heart of Cleveland speaking to the American people.”
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