Maureen Dowd has a good column today on the Barack-Michelle relationship, and the attacks sure to come Michelle's way. That being said--and I have only anecdotal evidence to support this contention--I think a lot of people on the left are much too concerned by the thought of the GOP going negative on the potential First Lady. As Dick Morris recently pointed out, the infamous 1992 GOP convention was full of attacks on Hillary Clinton that did the Republicans absolutely no good in November. Morris said that after the convention, internal polling showed a big hit in Hillary's favorability ratings; Bill--who could heroically come to his wife's defense--emerged unscathed. This of course elides the issue of sleaziness, but something tells me that the Obama campaign would happily settle for a repeat of the 1992 scenario.
There has not been much polling on Michelle Obama and Cindy McCain, but I was surprised by these Rasmussen numbers, which show Michelle's unfavorability rating at 42%. It remains to be seen whether this means she is a political problem for the campaign or, rather, irrelevant (Barack is doing just fine in his head-to-head match-up John McCain).
--Isaac Chotiner