How Michelle pushes for husband

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

“I’d have to think about that,” Obama said on “Good Morning America” on ABC. “I’d have to think about — policies, her approach, her tone.”

Outspoken, strong-willed, 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 on Tuesday of contests in Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia.

Her personal style — forthright, comfortable in the trenches, and often more blunt than Obama — plays well with a broad swath of the electorate and has given the campaign a steelier edge while allowing Obama to stay largely above it all.

“I am trying to be as authentically me as I can be,” Michelle Obama said in an interview. “My statements are coming from my experiences and my observations and my frustrations.”

Obama says she dislikes politics — she insists there will be no second run for the presidency if her husband falls short this time — but relishes a good fight, the competition of it all.

In the beginning, she had significant questions about an Obama candidacy. She pressed advisers for a blueprint of how the campaign would raise money and compete with Clinton and other candidates. She gave her approval after seeing a concrete plan presented in strategy meetings in late 2006, all of which she attended.

Now she is involved in most major facets of campaign strategy, always a fierce protector of her husband’s image. While the Obamas seldom travel together— fanning out much as the Clintons do — Michelle Obama is often in touch with key advisers and her message is shaped by the same strategists who advise her husband.

At almost six feet tall in heels, the Harvard law graduate Obama, 44, cuts an athletic and authoritative figure in her tailored pantsuits and skirts.

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

Michelle Obama has also had to learn to tamp down her sometimes biting humour because it too often leaves Barack Obama as the punch line. (It has been a long time since she has talked publicly about her husband of 15 years being smelly in the morning, as she told Glamour magazine, or forgetting to put away the butter.)