Obama speaks with MSNBC's Mika Brzezinski

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Brzezinski: Is there a first lady you model yourself after?

Obama: You know, I don’t.

Brzezinski: Hillary Clinton? Laura Bush? Somewhere in the middle?

Obama: I’m neither. I think that, you know, everyone who assumes the role of first lady brings something very unique to it. And it changes over time, and it’s going to be affected by the situations of our time – of our generation. It impacts what the first lady’s role will be. So I don’t want to speculate because I don’t want to box myself in and say, “Well you said you were gonna do this and now you’re doing that”, you know how that works. I’m not doing that.

Brzezinski: So, finally in May 2008 when your husband wins and you're in the While House how do you think life for the American Family will be different?

Obama: I think that there will be more balance, you know, I think we’re gonna sort of tip the scales of balance in favor of most Americans. I believe we'll have universal health care, I believe that we'll have more of a chance of people’s wages keeping up with the cost of living, I think we're going to have a presidency that is serious about global warming, that is going to begin to talk openly about the challenges we face, I still think we'll be a nation that is facing crisis overseas because these are difficult times and I don't think that that will change easily that will always be something that we'll worry about, but I think that it will not consume us to the point that we don't deal with domestic issues that will kill us as a country, you know we've gotta take some of the stress off of people, so that people are freed up to think clearly about some of the challenges in the world because you know when people are worried about heat and gas and college they can't think clearly about immigration or race or gay and lesbian issue or our role in the war because people are afraid and they're panicked and they're subject to being manipulated by those who want to go a certain way so I think when our country feels stable and whole again then hopefully we can talk honestly about what we really need to do to fix some of these broader issues.

Brzezinski: So for all that to happen, does he have to win Iowa?

Obama: Um, he has to do well in Iowa, we want to win everything. Right. You know you don't go into this stuff to come in second, you want to win everything, at least that's my motto, but you know we have the money to finish this race to the very end, we will be in this to the very end, that's why we love our broad base of supporters, our ability to raise 2 to 3 million dollars in the span of 72 hours speaks to our staying power and we will be in this through Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina the Feb 5th states we will be in this to the very end, but we want to win Iowa, we want to do well in Iowa and we need a great weekend to get us on this path.

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