Michelle, Barack Obama's 'rock' 

Monday, August 25, 2008, (Denver)
Barack Obama calls her wife Michelle his "rock" - the person who keeps him grounded.

A Harvard and Princeton educated lawyer, who has graced Vanity Fair's best dressed list, Michelle Obama draws audiences of over a thousand, even when she's campaigning on her own.

Her authentic African-American background also gives 47-year-old Barack Obama, who is from mixed Kenyan and white parentage, a broader appeal in Black America.

But, as most political spouses find out sooner or later, public life involves taking the bouquets along with the brickbats.

Michelle has been the subject of countless columns and websites and jokes. Fox News dubbed her as Barack's "baby mama". It later had to apologise for referring to Michelle's affectionate onstage fist bump with her husband as a "terrorist fist jab."

"Michelle Obama unfortunately becomes a very easy target. The whole idea of the first lady is a white woman who is the mother of the country and can a black woman be the mother of the country," Manning Marable fro Columbia University said.

Michelle is still new to politics an had strayed from the script in the past. In an extempore speech in February she said, "For the first time in my adult life I feel really proud of my country."

The Republican Party immediately picked up on what they alleged was a lack of patriotism in the Democratic Presidential nominee's wife.

This, coupled with Reverend Wright's inflammatory criticism of America when he was the Obama's pastor, has been a major bump in the Illinois senator's meteoric rise to the nomination.

Latest polls show that 35 per cent of voters have questions about how patriotic Obama is.

"The play book for discrediting a female candidate is to show that she is weak to discredit a black candidate you have to show that he is unpatriotic. As a person of colour, a black man Obama's patriotism is constantly called into question," said Carmen Racilicious.

Direct and plainspoken, with an edgy sense of humour, Michelle has also been derided for being too frank, like when she divulged that her husband, Barack Obama, unchivalrously leaves his laundry on the floor and sports bad morning breath. Some observers even detect an air of entitlement in Mrs Obama

Ironically, the mother of two has a lot in common with her husbands former opponent Hillary Clinton who was the target of much criticism for not fitting into the mold of a conventional first lady.

"Although the public is well aware that women today are breadwinners and career women and all that she needs to be subordinate. That was challenge that Hillary Clinton had. Michelle Obama should not be as vocal in the white house. It's enough that the president be vocal," said an image consultant.

When she steps up to the podium to make her speech on the opening night of the Democratic convention, Michelle Obama will be sending out a message that she's embraced the role of aspiring first lady and the scrutiny that comes with it.

Yet, this can only be the beginning of her own campaign to win America's trust.

In the final weeks before the election she faces the unenviable task of either changing the way America views its first ladies or fitting into a role she is not best suited to play.

Anything else would impose a heavy burden on a presidential candidate who is already seen as being an unorthodox choice, on personal attributes.
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