RALEIGH - Michelle Obama drew a huge and raucous crowd here Tuesday for a speech in which she argued that her husband was ready by experience, intellect and temperament to be the next president of the United States.

"The thing we have to understand in this race, North Carolina, is that Barack Obama is ready to lead," Michelle Obama told a crowd at Reynolds Coliseum that the fire marshal put at 5,700.

"O-bam-a, O-bam-a," chanted the crowd, jumping to its feet. The Obama campaign said it was the largest crowd for Michelle Obama that did not involve an appearance with celebrity Oprah Winfrey. The previous largest was 2,500 at Villanova University in Philadelphia, the campaign said.

The N.C. State University event was the final stop in a campaign swing that began with a round-table discussion with working women in Charlotte and continued with a midday rally attended by more than 1,000 people at Winston-Salem State University before ending in Raleigh.

The other major spouse in the May 6 Democratic presidential primary, former President Bill Clinton, will return to the state for a fourth trip this week, visiting Roanoke Rapids and Rocky Mount on Friday and traveling on Saturday to Greenville, Wilson, Goldsboro, Kinston, New Bern and Jacksonville.

On Tuesday night, Michelle Obama said that her husband was a proven winner despite competing against "a political dynasty," raising record amounts of money, collecting the most delegates and closing the superdelegate gap with Hillary Rodham Clinton.

"Barack has won more states, and he has won in all in kinds of states -- big states and small states, red states and blue states, and swing states. He won in primaries and caucuses," she said. "When was the last time you saw a candidate who could cobble together such diverse victories in states as Utah and Washington State, and Louisiana and Virginia, and Montana and Illinois?"

A glance at Barack

Michelle Obama sought to provide a fuller picture of her husband for voters. She said as the head of the prestigious Harvard Law Review, he could have made millions as a corporate lawyer but became a community organizer in Chicago. "These are the kinds of choices he made while no one was looking," she said.

She said no candidate in the presidential race could match Barack Obama's academic or intellectual credentials and said her husband actually had more legislative experience than Clinton -- whom she did mention by name. Barack Obama served in the Illinois state senate between 1997 and 2004 and was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2004. Clinton was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2000 and re-elected in 2006.

Michelle Obama said that her husband, as a veteran of Chicago politics, was tough enough to challenge the Republicans. She said "the ultimate fear bomb," her husband's ethnic name, did not hurt him the 2004 Senate race. (Obama faced only token opposition in that general election.)

Michelle Obama tried to humanize her husband and their lives -- from the heavy college debts they incurred from their Harvard law school days to having her mother watch her children while on the campaign trail.

And in Winston-Salem she poked a little fun.

"I'm a big fan of accessories," she said after mentioning the outfit of Mayor Pro Tem Vivian Burke. "I'm married to one.

"Just kidding."

The charm worked on April Mitchell, a 37-year old salon owner from Kernersville, who had been torn between backing Obama and Clinton. After listening to Michelle Obama in Winston-Salem, she said she would vote for Obama.

Mitchell said she had watched several debates and did not get the feel for the man before Tuesday.

"She made it more plain and simple," Mitchell said.

The campaign trail of the two spouses could not be more strikingly different. Bill Clinton is stumping in rural North Carolina, while Michelle Obama hit the state's metropolitan areas.

"She seems to come across very well to women voters because she is a mother and also a professional and a lawyer like Hillary," said Marie Wilson, president of the New York-based White House Project, which encourages women in politics.

"She is very straightforward," Wilson said. "She is very authentic in who she is. People are hungry for that."

Harder to get by

Michelle Obama, 44, may be a graduate of Princeton and Harvard law, but before audiences Tuesday she stressed her blue-collar roots in Chicago, where her father was a city worker who suffered from multiple sclerosis.

"Most Americans are like my father," Obama said. "They don't ask for much. Folks don't mind working hard. They will get up every day to go to work to take care of their families."

But Obama said blue collar jobs are drying up, health care is getting more expensive and more difficult, and the middle class is finding it hard to pay the rent or fill the tank.

"I don't mean to be bleak," Obama said. "I'm just telling you what I see."

Lalanda Foye, a 40-year old IBM employee from Raleigh, was favorably impressed with Michelle Obama.

"It takes a strong woman to be behind a strong man," she said.

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