Michelle Obama speaks on the "Empathy Deficit"

A cum laude graduate of Princeton University with a Harvard law degree, Michelle Obama may be one of the smartest people speaking on the campaign trail.

In an interview with National Public Radio (NPR) today, Michelle states that her husband's race is a "test for America."

"You know, politics is a nasty business, and you don't hold out hope that fairness will win, that truth and justice carries the day. You think that it's a business. And there was that part of me that said 'Do we want to put ourselves out for a system that I am not sure about?'"

"What Barack and I talked about when we decided to do this was that we were going to do this authentically and that this was as much a test for us about the country and the [political] process as it was the other way around," Michelle says.

"I am curious … if you offer somebody up that is real and true, will people grasp that? I want to believe that they will, because that's what they've got in front of them."

Michelle also speaks of the "empathy deficit" that's been lacking at the highest levels of American politics and she feels her husband can bring this new perspective to the president's office :

"What he's said time and time again is that this country is suffering from an empathy deficit, and if you don't have it in you to walk in another person's shoes, it's going to be difficult for us to move through these problems, that what we need, as a country, is to start caring for one another in a very deep and fundamental way."