Michelle Obama strode back into the political limelight last night to attack the McCain-Palin ploy of launching personal insults at her husband.

The prospective First Lady claimed that at a time of economic uncertainty voters were fed up with politicians trading slurs and wanted to hear real policy .

“They don’t care about the back and forth between the candidates,” she told CNN. “They want real answers about how we’re going to fix this economy and get the health care benefits on track.”

The wife of Barack Obama, who has a significant opinion poll lead ahead of next month’s election, embarked on a tour of the television studios insisting that personal insults would not affect the Obama campaign.

She said there were “two conversations” going on in the United States ahead of November’s presidential election. “There’s the conversation that’s been happening with the pundits... and then there’s the conversation that’s been happening on the ground,” she said.

Mrs Obama, 44, was asked by Larry King, a veteran chat show host, if she was offended by Senator John McCain’s description of her husband as “that one”, which was accompanied by a jerky jab of his finger during the presidential debate on Tuesday.

She replied that she had hardly noticed. “These little, you know, sound bites don't register with me,” she said.

“A lot of times I'm looking around at the faces of the undecided voters in the room, I'm trying to see how they're reacting. So there is so much going on in a room that a phrase here or there just doesn't resonate."

Indeed, Mrs Obama claimed that she did not enjoy attending debates or interviews as they made her nervous. She prefers to receive a phone call afterwards to let her know how her husband has performed.

On the Daily Show, which is hosted by Jon Stewart, Mrs Obama said that she also chose not to watch Republican rallies where Mr McCain or Sarah Palin, the Governor of Alaska, attacked her husband.

“I don’t watch it, I really need to stay focused on what’s going on on the ground,” she said, admitting that it had been a long and tiring campaign.

“It’s been 20 months,” she told Stewart, pointing to her cheek. “It brings a tear.”

Back on the campaign trail, Barack Obama insisted that he was not yet exhausted by the race for the White House.

“I can take four more weeks of John McCain’s attacks but the American people can’t take four more years of John McCain’s Bush policies,” he told a crowd in Indianapolis, Indiana.

An hour later, at a rally in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, Mr McCain continued his attacks and said Mr Obama was “misleading” on healthcare and an “eager participant” in the “corrupt system” of earmarks, congressional provisions that direct approved funds to be spent on specific projects.

To chants of “No Obama, no Obama” the 72-year-old Arizona senator went on: “What Senator Obama says today, and what he has done in the past, are very often two different things.

“Rather than answer his critics, Senator Obama will try to distract you from noticing that he never answers the serious and legitimate questions he’s been asked.”

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