SHE'S known to be intelligent and articulate, so you would expect a Hillary Clinton clone when Harvard- and Princeton-educated Michelle Obama goes to the White House on 21 Jan.

But though her own Ivy League resume and work history resemble more closely that of Mrs Clinton, the new first lady appears to want to model herself on the uncontroversial domesticity of current first lady Laura Bush, reported the Los Angeles Times.

It is difficult to tell which direction Mrs Obama will take as she has said openly she is not interested in a policy role but more interested in being 'mum-in-chief' to her two children.

But if you look closely at her track record, she is quite the power woman.

Shortly after the Obamas' second daughter was born in 2002, she went to work at the University of Chicago Medical Center, where she eventually became vice-president for community and external affairs.

Caught without a sitter, Mrs Obama took the baby with her to the job interview.

'She really wanted to make that known to me,' Mr Michael Riordan, president and chief executive of the medical centre, said last year. 'Family came first.'

Her salary nearly tripled in two years, going from US$122,000 ($185,500) to US$317,000. Hospital officials said the 2004 raise put her salary in line with those of its other vice-presidents.

Mrs Obama has vast experience in juggling work and career and has empathy for women in the same predicament.

During the campaign, she often held round-table discussions and talked easily from firsthand knowledge about the stresses of balancing motherhood and work.

Working mums

In a conversation with working mothers after visiting the day-care programme at the University of South Carolina, Mrs Obama bemoaned a system that does not give full support to working mums.

'Being an outstanding mother should not be at the expense of being a good employee,' she said.

'Part-time is a total scam, because part-time is full-time with less money. And you're labelled as a part-time person, and you still need child care. These are the realities of being a woman today, and that's been a frustration to me.'

'Scam', 'part-time person' - strong words, but Mrs Obama is no stranger to speaking her mind.

This is what has endeared her to her husband president-elect Barack Obama's supporters. And it is also what has occasionally gotten her into trouble.

She 'goes out there, speaks her mind, jokes' Obama campaign strategist David Axelrod told the New Yorker in March.

'She doesn't parse her words or select them with an antenna for political correctness. Occasionally, it gives campaign people heartburn,' he said.

Unlike Mrs Cindy McCain (wife of the Republican presidential candidate), who usually stood silently at her husband's side, Mrs Obama, 44, campaigned separately all over the country, enchanting supportive crowds with her down-to-earth attitude and her visceral understanding that people's lives were in an uncertain period of upheaval and challenge.

'We have become a nation of struggling folks, just barely making it every day,' she told a crowded church in South Carolina, days before her husband triumphed in that state's primary last January.

'Folks are just jammed up, and it's gotten worse over my lifetime. And doggone it, I'm young!'

Her ability to fight when needed comes from her background.

Princeton was an eye-opener for the high-achieving girl from Chicago's South Side. As she wrote in her senior thesis: 'My experiences at Princeton have made me far more aware of my 'blackness' than ever before.'

When she decided to apply to Harvard Law School, she didn't get wholehearted support, she told the church audience in South Carolina. 'My thesis adviser said, 'Well, you're smart, but you're maybe not the brightest thing I've seen coming out the blocks.' And I said: 'Oh, really?'

Mrs Obama graduated from Harvard Law in 1988 and landed her first job working for a Chicago law firm, Sidley & Austin, specialising in intellectual property law.

How they met

When Mr Obama arrived as a summer intern, she was assigned to supervise him. She already knew who he was - she'd heard about this good-looking guy who had become the first black president of the Harvard Law Review, and was curious.

But she didn't think she should date him, given their work relationship. He was determined, though, and won her hand. They married in 1992.

Whether she will use her the White House to advance the causes she believes in remains to be seen.

'My first job, in all honesty, is going to continue to be mum in chief,' Mrs Obama told Ebony magazine. The Obamas are the parents of 10-year-old Malia and 7-year-old Natasha, who goes by the nickname Sasha.

'They are the light of our lives,' she has often said on the stump. 'They make me breathe in and out every day because they are precious.'

This article was first published in The New Paper on Nov 17, 2008.