After Michelle Obama and Barack Obama, it is now the turn of the Obama offspring, Sasha and Malia Obama to be treated like celebrities in their own right.
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Michelle Obama, 44, spouse of the 2008 Democratic presumptive presidential nominee Barrack Obama, is a Harvard-educated lawyer and Vice President for Community and External Affairs at University of Chicago Hospitals. Michelle La Vaugh Robinson Obama was born in Chicago, Illinois to Frasier and Marian Robinson. Michelle Obama went to Whitney Young High School. She passed out in 1982 and went to Princeton University where she majored in sociology and minored in African American studies.

After graduating from Princeton in 1985, Michelle Obama joined Harvard Law School and got her JD degree in 1988. Michelle, then, went on to work for the law firm Sidley Austin in Chicago. It was at Sidney Austin that Michelle Obama met Barack Obama who was her mentee.

Michelle and Barack Obama got married in 1992. The couple have two daughters, Malia Ann, 10, and Natasha, 7.

Career Milestones

1990: Assistant to the Mayor and Assistant Commissioner of Planning and Development, Chicago city government.

1993: Executive Director for the Chicago office of Public Allies, a non-profit organization encouraging young people to work on social issues in nonprofit groups and government agencies.

1996: Associate Dean of Student Services at the University of Chicago

2002: Executive director for community affairs, University of Chicago Hospitals

2005: Vice President for Community and External Affairs

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Political Role

Michelle Obama, while she claims to dislike politics, has been an integral part of Obama’s presidential campaign. She has often been referred to as The Closer in the media because of her ability to pull in votes.

In the early days of the campaign, she traveled for nearly three days a week taking part in events and giving interviews. In February 2008, Michelle attended 33 events in a week.

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Michelle Obama has said that she is not a senior adviser to Barack Obama when describing her role. Michelle gave two stump speeches in 2007 for Obama’s presidential campaign. Her speeches were described as intelligent and honest. She appears to project herself as a real woman, a professional who has to juggle work with raising kids, and being a wife.

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Michelle Obama’s public persona: Guts, glamor and grouses

The first Black First Lady in-waiting, Michelle Obama has engendered great curiosity, not just in what she says and how she behaves, but also in terms of her glam quotient. She has been touted as one of the World’s 25 most inspiring women by Essence magazine, she has also been dubbed as among the
World’s top 10 best dressed people by Vanity Fair.

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Unlike Laura Bush who is considered to be a supportive homemaker, and Hillary Clinton who is considered to be a shrewd politician, Michelle Obama is perceived to be smart as a whip with indisputable professional credentials. She is also considered to be a consenctious mother who has cut back on her demanding career to raise her children.

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She has often been described in the media as a straight-talking, smart, and outspoken to a fault. In fact, her detractors think that she is not diplomatic enough and her tendency to say exactly what she pleases may do Obama more harm than good.

Critics have accused her of being anti-American when she said that,“for the first time in my adult life, I am proud of my country … because I think people are hungry for change.”

Michelle Obama’s speeches are peppered with details of how tough things are for average Americans; she often cites the example of her own struggle to make good in life. She has often mentioned how difficult it was to be a black student in Princeton and Harvard. Conservatives have denigrated these statements as the carping of a bitter, ungrateful, ghetto American.

Michelle has also come in for criticism for belittling her husband in public. In order to project Obama as a regular Joe and get a few laughs, she has made references to his big ears, snoring, bad breath, and other assorted masculine failings.

But for all the quibbling about her personality, no one denies that she is pretty much the “rock” in her husband’s life as described by him.