The putative Democratic nominee is a former First Lady, so might future ones; How About Flotus for Potus?

This week, Michelle Obama has ruled out — not for the first time — chances of making a run for the White House, citing her daughters’ travails of growing up in the White House fishbowl. But nothing can be certain in politics, particularly given that there appears to be a new appetite in the US for First Ladies with an eye on the West Wing after their stint in the East Wing. And considering the strong political instincts of the current First Couple, there may even be something to the apocryphal tale that President Barack Obama once replied to former President Bill Clinton’s persistent urging to support Hillary’s candidacy with “You know, Michelle would make a great presidential candidate, too”.

A Michelle Obama campaign is not entirely inconceivable now that the redoubtable, if fictional, Claire Underwood has proved in the latest series of House of Cards that underestimating First Ladies is a cardinal error. For, Claire is but the make-believe avatar of another formidable Flotus, Edith, who as the wife of the 28th President Woodrow Wilson practically ran the US for 17 months when a stroke incapacitated him, exactly a century ago. And by joining her husband ‘President’ Frank Underwood’s election campaign as his vicepresidential candidate, she has also given future feisty First Ladies another option, too.