Former President Barack Obama, marking the retirement of the woman credited with popularizing the chant “Fired up, ready to go!” that epitomized his campaigns, says her energy played a key role in lifting his spirits and his candidacy.
“It was early in my campaign, and I wasn’t doing that good,” Obama recalled in a video provided to The Associated Press by the Obama Foundation, harking back to a 2007 campaign stop in Greenwood, South Carolina, on a dreary, rainy day.
