American Voters, Meet the Obamas

In an age of divorce and single parenting, it was the picture of the model American family: dad, mum and two charming children. American voters, meet the Obamas.

Barack and Michelle Obama let down their guard this week to grant their first interview en famille to Access Hollywood with daughters Malia, 10, and Sasha, 7. The two girls - who occasionally squirm with boredom - discuss such family fare as sleepovers, date night, ice cream, their father's disinterest in shopping and how he embarrasses them in front of their friends by shaking their hands.

But their television debut could be their last major appearance. Today, Obama said he regretted exposing his daughters to a mass television audience. "I don't think it's healthy and it's something that we'll be avoiding in the future," he told ABC television.

However, Leslie Morgan Steiner, who writes on work and motherhood, saw the appearance as part of a conscious effort by Obama to reassure voters that he has a model American family.

"He is very very savvy about the fact that this is so incredibly important to American voters," she said. "He is saying: 'I am really a family man. Look at these two beautiful girls'."

In today's segment, the Obamas talk about keeping in touch on the phone while he is on the campaign trail, and maintaining the romance in their 15-year marriage. Malia reveals the couple holds hands. "Sometimes people think it is embarrassing," she said. "I like it."

Elsewhere, she chides her father for trying to shake her friends' hands instead of just saying hello. "She basically avoids me embarrassing her by giving these tips, especially when I'm around her friends," her father laughed.

He also admitted that his daughters tune out during his public speeches.

Steiner suggested one key audience of the television interview was former supporters of Hillary Clinton, who are mainly women with children, and that Obama might not done the interviews if his children were boys. "This is all about family and girl power and I am a man who supports strong powerful women of any age in my life."

Political candidates have long been conscious of the fine balance between projecting an image of a healthy family life and being accused of exploiting their own children.

While Obama featured his wife and daughters in a Christmas Eve ad in Iowa, the children have largely remained out of sight. Michelle Obama has spoken repeatedly of her desire to give her children a normal childhood.

Before school broke for the summer, they were mainly at home in Chicago.

But political progeny are playing an increasingly important role on the campaign trail - for good and for ill.

In 2000, Republican operatives working on George Bush's nomination campaign helped spread a rumor that John McCain's daughter, Bridget, who was adopted from Bangladesh, was actually his African-American love child. Bridget was just 8 years old at the time.

In this year's Republican primaries, McCain's elder daughter, Megan, blogged her father's campaign across New Hampshire.

John Edwards, the former vice-presidential candidate, uprooted his young son and daughter from their schools in North Carolina and took them on the road with him.

Chelsea Clinton gave up her job to campaign fulltime for her mother.

So far as Steiner is concerned, Obama's family is a definite political asset. With his textbook nuclear family of wife and two children, "he does an in credible job of convincing us he is so typical when he is not," Steiner said.