Michelle Obama: My husband will always be the underdog no matter what

It’s hard to understand exactly what Michelle “this country is just downright mean” Obama is saying here:

With Obama now leading in the national polls, Michelle Obama said she has seen how the bar for her husband has been consistently raised this year, and how he has met each of the challenges.

“The irony is that’s what’s going on for regular folks in this country” she said. “The truth of the American experience today for many regular folks is that folks are trying to reach a bar that just keeps moving.”

But, Obama said she still believes her husband is the underdog in the race.

“We are gonna need Pennsylvania” she said. “Because in this ever-shifting, moving bar, Barack Obama will always be the underdog. No matter how much money he raises, no matter how many wins he pulls together, no matter how many delegates he accumulates; he is still the underdog. It’s the way it works.”

Carol Platt Liebau speculates:

What isn’t is clear is what she means when she insists that because of an “ever-shifting, moving bar,” her husband is doomed to perpetual underdog status because “it’s the way it works.”

Is she asserting the presence of a racial double standard — racial victimization talk that once again suggests that she has shared Jeremiah Wright’s views every bit as much as her husband, if not more? If not, to what does she attribute her husband’s position as eternal underdog no matter what?

I think there’s a good deal of merit to Carol’s argument. IMO, it boils down to straight up playing the victim card. Liberal Democrats like Michelle Obama know that one of the most surefire ways to win over people is to portray another group of people, or in this case, a person, as a ‘victim’ of our “downright mean” society. This stirs up feelings of both sympathy and anger, and spurs people on to want to ‘correct’ the allleged ‘injustice.’

Let’s keep in mind, though, that barring an unlikely collapse of his campaign, Obama is poised to stay ahead in the delegate count, and continues to out-fundraise all candidates, and it’s all happened, in part, with the eager help of our mainstream media, who have treated him like a messiah by giving him, dare I say, affirmative action-like fawning coverage. Considering all that, it’s unclear whether MO was speaking out of deliberate or genuine ignorance, because no one can seriously look at Barack Obama and where he stands now and credibly view him as an “underdog.”

I should note that she was speaking at a rally at Carnegie Mellon University alongside … Teresa Heinz Kerry. Talk about two peas in a pod.

Related: Barack Obama gets the endorsement of Hanoi Jane (via Memeo).