Biased testimonies helpful but not reliable 
Well, that's a wrap. This presidential election's conventions have come and gone, and they were about as typical as one would expect. It wouldn't be American politics if it hadn't been filled with plenty of mudslinging. Throw in a healthy dose of hyperbole and heart-string plucking (e.g., the family whose financial well-being completely depends on their health insurance's coverage of their young daughter) and you've got yourself rigmarole as predictable as the crowds for the parties: older, presumably wealthy, white folks for the Republicans and a youthful, diverse and perhaps more energetic audience for the Democrats.
However, there was one exception to the usual formula. Out of the blue, first lady Michelle Obama gave an awfully powerful speech as a testament to her husband's character and determination to ensure a better America for the generations whose parents were unable to flourish in their pursuit of happiness. The media are already gobbling up her speech, positing that she may have stolen the spotlight. They've even gone so far as to report an analysis of the speech's intellectual value that deemed it written at a 12th-grade level, the highest of any speech given by a nominee's wife. In case you were wondering, Ann Romney's was apparently written at a seventh-grade level. Michelle Obama's speech was incredibly well delivered and equally well written, and that's all fine and dandy. But does a nominee's wife really have anything valuable to add?
Before I'm heralded as a hateful misogynist, I'd just like to clarify that it's not so much the wife herself but her perspective of her husband. In a perfect world, no one would know a president better than his significant other, but would one expect anything less than unconditional and resounding support in a speech from a first wife? Granted, they serve as excellent tools in giving shape to a persona to which the average person can relate, but aside from that, their speeches are nothing more than a vessel for campaign strategy. In a macroscopic sense, the speeches from President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney's wives helped round out the image their campaigns are trying to portray their nominees as, but beyond that it's really no more than showmanship. That may be an inherent part of politics, but perhaps that's why there's a need for fact checkers upon fact checkers: The focus on flash, rather than bang, breeds misinformation.
In the political arena, the opinions of once-competitors and skeptics hold much more weight than wives who are lawfully wedded and devoted to the nominees in the first place. There is simply more intrinsic value to testimony and support from neutral or unexpected sources, especially ones with little to gain from a presidency. In the weeks coming to our election, be wary of sources before you're too quick to praise. You wouldn't ask coach Steve Spurrier what his favorite college football team is, would you?