Michelle the belle fighting Obama's corner

Published on Saturday 16 February 2008 18:58

THERE is no confusing Michelle Obama for her husband on the campaign trail.

Asked at the Democratic debate in Los Angeles whether he would pick Hillary Clinton as a vice presidential running mate, Barack Obama said she "would be on anybody's short list".

But when a television interviewer asked Michelle last week whether she would support Clinton if she won the nomination, she was far less generous.

"I'd have to think about that," she said on ABC's Good Morning America. "I'd have to think about policies, her approach, her tone."

Outspoken, funny, gutsy and sometimes sarcastic, Michelle Obama is playing a pivotal role in her husband's campaign as it builds on a series of successes, including a sweep last week of contests in Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia.

Her personal style – forthright, comfortable in the trenches and often more blunt than her husband – plays well with many voters and has given the campaign a steelier edge while allowing her husband to stay largely above it all.

"I am trying to be as authentically me as I can be," she said. "My statements are coming from my experiences and my observations and my frustrations."

Now involved in most major facets of campaign strategy, she is always a fierce protector of her husband's image.

At almost six feet tall in heels, Michelle, 44, cuts an athletic and authoritative figure in her tailored suits and skirts. A Harvard-educated lawyer who had been earning $212,000 a year as a hospital executive before taking leave last month, she delivers rousing 40-minute speeches – surveying topics as far-ranging as the specific failings of the federal No Child Left Behind education act and problems with the military strategy in Iraq – without the aid of even a notecard.

But her confident, commanding presence has its drawbacks. At an address last month for a black awards gala in Atlanta, some were left feeling that she had been condescending, preaching to a group of achievers about the need to achieve.

"Her speech was very long and inappropriate for that occasion," said Vivian Creighton Bishop, a public official in Columbus, Georgia, who supports Clinton.

Michelle has also had to learn to damp down her sometimes biting humour because it too often leaves her husband as the punchline. (It has been a long time since she has talked publicly about her husband of 15 years being smelly in the morning.) "What I've learned is that my humour doesn't translate to print all the time," she said. "But usually when I'm speaking to a group, people understand what I'm trying to say, they get the humour."

Michelle has also been transparent about more mundane things, such as leaning on her mother for childcare while she is on the road. She does not have a nanny, and has said on more than one occasion: "Thank God for Grandma!

"I spend more time worrying about how do I keep the girls' lives on track in the midst of this?" she said. "Barack and I both do. How do we keep our traditions whole? Those are the day-to-day concerns."