Barack’s Rock

Her reluctance to immerse herself in the minutiae of the campaign should not be mistaken for a lack of desire to win. Deeply competitive by nature—growing up, Michelle stayed clear of team sports because she couldn't stand the idea of losing—she wants the White House as much as he does. From her vantage point outside the day-to-day chaos of the campaign, she serves as a source of official calm. One senior adviser, who asked for anonymity talking about a private meeting, recalls fretting to Michelle early on that Obama's support among Southern black voters wasn't picking up quickly enough. Michelle told him to relax. "Don't worry," she said. "It will be just like [Obama's Senate campaign in] Illinois. The numbers will all move our way." As it turned out, she was right.

She played a similar part after the surprise loss in New Hampshire, where polls had Obama leading Hillary Clinton by wide margins. It was Michelle who delivered the pep talk to the candidate's dispirited aides waiting anxiously outside the couple's hotel suite. She cautioned them against listening to the pundits and polls: "We need to send a message to all our supporters to not take a single thing for granted."

Michelle then turned her ministrations to her husband. As he walked onstage that night to deliver his concession speech, she took his hand and led him around the front of the podium so he could recharge himself with the cheers of the crowd. She paused with him for a moment, then patted him on the cheek and left the stage.

Still new enough to politics that she doesn't yet belabor her every word, Michelle's sharp humor poking fun at her husband—she's joked that Obama snores and has bad breath in the morning—can sometimes fall flat. This is especially true when people see the punch lines in print, where her comments can be read as disrespectful. At a recent speech in Wisconsin, the excited young woman introducing Michelle flubbed her line, saying she was "honored to introduce the next president!" Michelle strode to the podium with a big smile. "I like that promotion that I got," she told the crowd. "I don't know if Barack knows yet. We can announce it on the news tonight. He's going to be the First Lady."

She realizes not everyone finds her jokes funny, but doesn't seem all that interested in curbing her tongue. "Somehow I've been caricatured as this emasculating wife," she tells NEWSWEEK. "Barack and I laugh about that. It's just sort of, like, do you think anyone could emasculate Barack Obama? Really now."

Those who know her invariably describe Michelle as poised, relaxed and confident. "There is no difference between the public Michelle and the private Michelle," says University of Chicago law professor David Strauss, who sits with her on the board of the University of Chicago's Lab School. (The Obamas' daughters attend the school.) "There's no pretense." Yet that confidence did not come naturally. Now 44, Michelle has had to overcome persistent self-doubts and insecurity—about her abilities, about race and class, and about what kind of life she was supposed to lead.

Unlike her husband, who did not know his father well and never had a stable home life, Michelle Robinson was raised in a loving, two-parent family on Chicago's South Side. Her childhood home, a one-bedroom apartment inside a brick bungalow, isn't far from the $1.65 million house where the Obamas now live. Her mother, Marian, was a doting presence, a stay-at-home mom who often made lunch for her daughter and friends and listened patiently to all the school gossip. But the family's home life was dominated by her quiet but formidable father, Fraser. Once a gifted athlete, he was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in his 20s. Despite his physical limitations, he woke early each morning and went to work at the municipal water department. A lifelong Democrat, he was a precinct captain.

Her father lived vicariously through the accomplishments of his children. He was especially proud of Michelle's brother, Craig, a star basketball player whose talent and grades got him a scholarship to Princeton. (He is now head basketball coach at Brown University.) Fraser Robinson would never raise his voice to his children when they misbehaved. Instead, he would fix them with a cold stare and say, "I'm disappointed." Hearing that would make young Michelle and her brother collapse into tears. "You never wanted to disappoint him," she says. "We would be bawling."

For Michelle, Craig's easy success was intimidating. "She was disappointed in herself," her mother tells NEWSWEEK. "She used to have a little bit of trouble with tests, so she did whatever she had to, to make up for that. I'm sure it was psychological because she was hardworking and she had a brother who could pass a test just by carrying a book under his arm. When you are around someone like that, even if you are OK, you want to be as good or better."