Political wives’ changing roles

It is the country’s most scrutinized - and often thankless - volunteer job. Say too much and you are labeled a loudmouth. Say too little and you’re a robot.

It is the job of first lady, and Michelle Obama, wife of Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama, is trying to find the happy medium for her image during this long campaign season.

The role is a help-wanted ad with a changing definition, said Republican pollster Kellyanne Conway, author of the book “What Women Really Want: How American Women Are Quietly Erasing Political, Racial, Class and Religious Lines to Change the Way We Live.”

“Most political wives are accidental politicians,” Mrs. Conway said. “Their husbands made the decision to enter politics at this level long after they were married. Most of them didn’t ask for this.”

Reluctant leader or not, the first lady still has an important job, said Larry Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia.

“The first lady is, in some ways, more influential than the secretary of state,” he said. “She has the president’s ear and knows all the secrets.”

Impressive resume

If first ladies were judged by resumes, Michelle Robinson Obama, who addresses the Democratic National Convention on Monday, would seem well-qualified for the job. The daughter of a city worker and a homemaker, she grew up in a two-family bungalow in a black neighborhood on Chicago’s South Side. She attended public schools - skipping second grade - and went on to Princeton University. Mrs. Obama was one of 94 black freshmen in a class of more than 1,100.

After Princeton came Harvard Law, then a job at Sidley Austin, a Chicago corporate law firm. It was there she was asked to mentor Mr. Obama, a fellow Harvard Law graduate and a new associate. The couple married in 1992.

Eventually, Mrs. Obama left the firm for the staff of Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley, where she worked with service agencies to help the disadvantaged. Along the way, the couple had two daughters - Malia, 10, and Sasha, 7 - and Mrs. Obama went to work as vice president of community affairs for the University of Chicago Medical Center.

It is the intangibles, though, that make Mrs. Obama far from the traditional first lady and more of a hard sell to some.

Critics have suggested favoritism as Mr. Obama’s political influence rose, as when Mrs. Obama took a board seat for TreeHouse Foods. The family’s association with controversial pastor the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. also has earned her criticism, bringing up racial stereotypes the family has long tried to overcome.

Taking a hit

Then came remarks made at a February campaign stop in Madison, Wis.

“For the first time in my adult life, I am really proud of my country,” Mrs. Obama told the crowd. “Not just because Barack is doing well, but I think people are hungry for change.”

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