Nov. 2 (Bloomberg) -- She's a mother in her early 40s, an accomplished lawyer with an Ivy League education married to a Democratic presidential candidate who promises to redefine U.S. politics. Not Hillary Clinton, circa 1992; it's Michelle Obama, 2007.

Fifteen years after Clinton drew comment and condemnation as the standard-bearer of a new generation of professional women, Michelle Obama's juggling of professional life, motherhood and the duties of political spouse make her something of a modern-day everywoman.

``I don't think it's that unusual anymore,'' Obama said in an interview between campaign stops in Clarion, Iowa, last week. ``It's not that Hillary and I have so much in common, it's just that we're in a generation now where a lot of women go to school, they develop these wonderful careers, they have their professions in their own rights.''

Even as her husband, Illinois Senator Barack Obama, battles Clinton for the Democratic presidential nomination, her matter-of-fact approach to her role -- and its acceptance by the public -- may owe a lot to the battles fought by the former first lady.

``Hopefully, we have all evolved as individuals and as a country, and this notion that the first lady is supposed to be at home baking cookies and not concerned with real issues is behind us,'' said Avis LaVelle, a colleague of Obama's when she was an assistant to Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley in 1991 and a national press secretary for Bill Clinton in 1992. ``Maybe we have Mrs. Clinton to thank for that.''

Legal Careers

Michelle Obama, 43, and Hillary Clinton, 60, both attended elite law schools: Harvard University for Obama, Yale for Clinton. Obama was an associate at the Chicago-based law firm Sidley Austin; she then worked in city government, a non-profit group and the University of Chicago. Clinton was a Watergate investigator and a partner in the largest practice in Arkansas.

Their paths have diverged in other, fundamental ways. Clinton subordinated her ambitions to those of her husband by moving to Arkansas to help him pursue a political career; she ran for her New York Senate seat only as his presidency was winding down. Obama met her spouse when he was a summer associate and she his mentor at Sidley Austin. When her husband was elected to the Senate in 2004, she kept her job in Chicago as an executive at the University of Chicago Medical Center.

``I see a lot of candidates' wives or husbands who feel comfortable in one domain or the other and who have conflicts about how they balance the professional and the family,'' said Vanessa Kirsch, who hired Obama in 1993 to run the Chicago Office of Public Allies, a leadership training program for young adults. ``I think she's pretty well grounded and clear on that.''

Immune to Criticism

Obama has so far been largely immune to the kinds of criticism directed at Clinton as first lady, when she was accused by conservatives of putting a ruthless, arrogant and manipulative nature at the service of a radical feminist agenda.

By contrast, Obama has mostly stayed under the radar, only rarely generating headlines, with the exception of a reference she made to her husband's ``stinky'' morning breath and an interview on CBS News's ``60 Minutes'' in which she said that as a black man, ``Barack can get shot going to the gas station.''

She is now learning to be a more cautious campaigner for her husband. At an event last week in Eagle Grove, Iowa, as she spoke about the nation's divisions, a man interjected: ``Last time we were divided, Abe Lincoln came to the White House and united us.''

`Enough Said'

``Barack Obama, Abe Lincoln. There you go, enough said,'' she said, drawing laughs from the audience. ``Now, I don't want the press to quote me as saying my husband is Abe Lincoln.''

Obama is also careful to avoid presenting her marriage as the ``two-for-one'' White House partnership that Bill and Hillary Clinton promoted in 1992 and have suggested will be repeated if she is elected president and her husband becomes first spouse.

``I'm not running for an office,'' Obama said. ``In order to get two for one, you have to have two people running for office.''

At the same time, she leaves open the possibility there may be a place for her in an Obama administration. The role of first lady, she said, ``is really broad and flexible.''

At a women's conference in Long Beach, California, last week, she joked about her influence. She and her husband discuss the issues, then ``I go to my job and I make decisions on my job and those are my decisions, and he goes to his job and he makes the decisions,'' she said. ``Now, I would like to think that he has the good sense to understand that I am usually correct.''

To contact the reporter on this story: Julianna Goldman in Washington at jgoldman6@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: November 2, 2007 00:13 EDT