In the Spotlight: Candidates' Wives at Convention

Aug. 24, 2008— -- Speaking to packed crowds is nothing new for Michelle Obama and Cindy McCain. As the wives of the 2008 presidential candidates, both women have spent countless hours on the stump for their husbands.

But with the Democratic convention set to start Monday, and the Republican convention following close behind, both women are about to face their biggest audiences yet.

Speaking at the convention is a challenge and a pressure Shelia Tate knows very well, from her time as White House press secretary to former first lady Nancy Reagan. She also coached former first lady Barbara Bush as she prepared for her own convention speech in 1988.

"What's important about these speeches is that the convention platform that she has is the biggest opportunity she will have, the biggest audience she will have, for the entire campaign," Tate told ABC News. "She has the chance to convince millions of voters who are undecided that her husband has the heart and the decency, and the experience to be president."

Obama plans on focusing on her family, according to her spokesperson. She will share the story of their lives and their values. It is an important message for the Obama campaign, as they use the Democratic convention to answer any lingering questions as to who Barack Obama really is.

And it is a familiar message, as well. It has practically become a convention standard to use the would-be first lady as a way to humanize her husband.

"For Bill and me, family has been the center of our lives. But we also know that our family, like your family, is part of a larger community that can help or hurt our best efforts to raise our child," Hillary Clinton told the crowd gathered in Chicago in 1996. In 2004, Laura Bush shared a similar sentiment. "George and I grew up in West Texas, where the sky seems endless, and so do the possibilities. He brings that optimism, that sense of purpose."

And more than a decade earlier, Laura Bush's mother-in-law used the same idea in her speech, telling the crowd, "The hardest thing we ever faced together was the loss of a child."