I found the phrase “Pick up your socks” and “Have your socks bronzed” in the following sentence of Maureen Dawd’s article in today’s New York Times:

“When Barack is cocky and looks at Michelle, he might see her thinking: “You’re no messiah. Pick up your socks.” But when Newt is cocky and looks at Callista, he sees her thinking: “You are the messiah. We’ll have your socks bronzed.”

As the sentence is followed by the line, “Where Michelle sees herself as the puncturer of delusions, ‘the Department of ‘Let’s Get Real,’ as an aide called her,” I can guess “pick up your socks” means “know yourself, be realistic” and “have your socks bronzed,” means “make you glorious/ grandeur”

Is my understanding right or off the mark? Are both of the phrases popular expressions as the antithesis?