Anyone fearing Barack Obama is succumbing to a "Messiah complex" might be disabused by observing his wife, Michelle, on the campaign trail. Such critics, who include a number of prominent columnists and a journalist for online news magazine Slate who maintains an "Obama Messiah watch", might pay closer attention to Mrs Obama, who likes to remind people of her -husband's less glamorous qualities.

Having revealed that Mr Obama snores, leaves the butter dish out of the fridge and drops socks around their three-storey home in -Chicago, Mrs Obama was chided by some for apparently impairing her husband's dignity. Maureen Dowd of the New York Times even accused her of "emasculating" Mr Obama when she should have been elevating him.