By Martha T. Moore, USA TODAY



"In the end, for Barack, these issues aren't political - they're personal," the first lady said. "Barack knows what it means when a family struggles. He knows what it means to want something more for your kids and grandkids. Barack knows the American Dream because he's lived it - and he wants everyone in this country to have that same opportunity, no matter who we are, or where we're from, or what we look like, or who we love."

Four years ago, Michelle Obama's convention speech was designed in part to mend her own image - "I love this country" she made a point of saying. In the White House, she focused on helping military families and encouraging exercise and healthy diets for children.

Now a popular first lady, she is working to shift her public approval to her husband with a warm, positive speech that sought to remind voters that of the personal virtues they seemed to embrace in his candidacy four years ago.


She reminisced about the early days of their marriage, when she said the couple's student loan payments were higher than their mortgage. "We were so young, so in love, and so in debt," she said. He was "a kindred spirit," she said.





"Our families weren't asking for much," she said. "They didn't begrudge anyone else's success or care that others had much more than they did - in fact, they admired it."

The convention's first night featured people talking about how their own lives have been affected by the administration's policies, including the health care overhaul and the endorsement of same-sex marriage. Michelle Obama's plan, the campaign said, was to talk about the reverse: how her husband's life and values had affected his policy.

She cast Obama as steady and persistent - "when we're worried that the bill won't pass, and it seems like all is lost - Barack never lets himself get distracted by the chatter and the noise. ... He just keeps getting up and moving forward ... with patience and wisdom and courage and grace."

And she asked voters to stay the course, saying it is the president who "reminds me that we are playing a long game here. Change is hard, and change is slow, and it never happens all at once. But eventually we get there; we always do."