Pa. rally unites 2 political wives

Heinz Kerry is Obama mentor

Michelle Obama and Teresa Heinz Kerry greeted voters yesterday at a rally at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. Obama praised Heinz Kerry as an "exceptional mentor." (Keith Srakocic/Associated Press)

PITTSBURGH - Teresa Heinz Kerry welcomed Michelle Obama to her adopted hometown yesterday, passing a torch from one occasionally controversial would-be first lady to another.

"You know there are not many people who have gone through this who you can reach out to and say, 'What is this going to be like?' " Obama said, praising the spouse of the previous Democratic presidential nominee as an "exceptional mentor to me personally" who has "been so generous with her time and emotions."

While Senator John F. Kerry of Massachusetts has campaigned actively for Barack Obama since endorsing him in January - and will be touring Pennsylvania this weekend on his behalf - his wife has been largely silent this campaign season. She has surfaced largely as the object of skeptical comparisons to Michelle Obama, as independent spouses whose provocative remarks have proven occasionally distracting from the candidate's message.

"Michelle and I have become good friends mostly through the BlackBerries," Heinz Kerry said at a gym at Carnegie Mellon University.

Each found a dramatically different voice to make her case to Pennsylvania voters.

Heinz Kerry spoke in a whisper, beginning her brief speech where she frequently started when campaigning on her husband's behalf in 2004: discussing how prized American elections are to her as an immigrant from Mozambique whose father was unable to cast a vote for much of his life.

"In our society, we tend to be so numerical - everything is inches or dollars or whatever," said Heinz Kerry as she made the case against those who discount Barack Obama as inexperienced. "I know the most important things are not just what you know but what you do with what you know."

Michelle Obama brought a politician's cadence to her 50-minute address, delivering spitfire observations that built naturally toward applause lines, devoting much of her speech to a detailed accounting of her husband's successes as a candidate.

"Barack Obama will always be the underdog. No matter how much money he raises, now matter how many wins he pulls together, no matter how many delegates he accumulates, he is still the underdog," she said. "That's the way it works."

Sasha Issenberg can be reached at sissenberg@globe.com.