DENVER — Michelle Obama likes to describe herself in simple terms -- a mother, a lawyer and a wife who grew up in a blue-collar family in a working-class Chicago neighborhood.
Republicans have been busy trying to portray her in a less flattering light.
They say she is a loose -- and less than patriotic -- cannon. As evidence, they cite the comment she made this year about how she was really proud of her country for the first time as an adult. Obama says she meant she was proud of how engaged Americans were in this election.
The goal for Michelle Obama during this week's Democratic convention is not all that different from her husband's: She has to define herself rather than let the caricature sketched by her critics settle in the mind of voters.
Her biggest opportunity will come today as she headlines the convention's opening night with a prime-time televised speech that will reach millions of viewers.
She will share stories about her life, starting with her childhood growing up on the top floor of a brick bungalow in Chicago's South Shore neighborhood. She will talk about how she met and fell in love with her husband in a law-office romance.
"So far, the public has only seen the sound bites and the YouTube version, and you have not heard from Michelle," said Rep. Jesse L. Jackson Jr. (D-Ill.). "It will be a proud moment to see the unedited version, the smart, graceful, Harvard-educated lawyer, mother and supportive spouse."
She is under pressure, political analysts said, to charm a national audience while convincing voters that she is very much like many working women who must juggle a job (most recently as an executive at the University of Chicago Hospitals) and a family.
The speech will serve as a preview of what she would be like as first lady, said Bill Whalen, research fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, a conservative think tank. Her challenge, he said, is not so much what she says but how she presents it.
"The muttering you hear is that she has a little too much edge," said Whalen, a Republican speechwriter for former California Gov. Pete Wilson. "She's too smart and too accomplished to stand out there and smile for 15 minutes. The challenge is to get up there smooth and charming and not have too much attitude."
Valerie Jarrett, a senior Obama campaign official and a longtime friend of Michelle Obama, said the convention would serve as a "watershed moment" for the would-be first lady.
