Today, as I was surfing EntreCard, I came across Regina’s blog post about Michelle Obama’s speech the other night. She was effusive about the wonderful speech and others were adding their comments.

Here is what I wrote:

Yesterday, as I drove to the train station to pick up my daughters, I saw young black women on their way to work or school. My thoughts went back to Michelle Obama's speech, and I wondered, how many of these young women could be the next Michelle Obama? How can we work together to help some of these young women attain such a lofty goal?

I hope that Michelle Obama's speech will help her become our next First Lady. Yet I have higher hopes. I hope that her speech will cause more people to stop and think about how they can help all of the youth of our nation, black or white, male of female, to become closer to the sort of person that Michelle Obama is.

I went on to think about Michelle Obama as a role model for my daughters. Yet in the media cycle, Michelle Obama’s speech is already old news. The talk of the day is Hillary Clinton’s excellent speech. She, too, provides an excellent role model for young people today.

So, I hope we look beyond the immediate political aspects of the convention and beyond November. My mind goes back to when Gov. Dean was running for President. He often said, “The biggest lie people like me tell people like you, is that if you vote for me, I will solve all your problems. The truth is, you have the power.”

The problem is that we don’t know what to do with our power. How do we use that power to help make a better world? Michelle Obama and Hillary Clinton help us understand that power and provide role models in how to use it.

We need Barack Obama as our next President, as a leader that can help us return to the values that have made our country strong. We also need great people around him, like his wife, and like Hillary Clinton to be role models for us as each one of us owns our own power and takes a more active role in living out our great values.