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Here you go...remainder of story for those who are "click averse"...

...Mrs. Bush, 57, makes little secret of the fact that while she has no problem with public speaking, political campaigning is not one of her favorite pursuits. But ever since giving her first stump speech of the year, at Las Vegas in May, she has skillfully turned her lack of political polish to her advantage.

True, she reads from prepared remarks in the careful manner of the schoolteacher she used to be, rarely varying tone or volume even when the speech seems to call for doing so and her words are eliciting cheers.

But she often makes prolonged eye contact with individual members of her audience, and when she loses her place in the speech, which does not happen often, she smiles and forges resolutely ahead, sending a kind of tacit "Y'all understand I'm not a politician" message to her listeners. Then she often spends more time than her handlers would like shaking hands, posing for pictures and talking to supporters.

"What she does up there is exude the love she has for her husband and the respect she has for him," said Bette Duncan, a co-owner of an electronics manufacturing company, who came to hear the first lady speak in Grafton, Wis. "And that's refreshing in politics. It's not all 'me, me, me.' Laura is just a great woman."

Mrs. Duncan paused, and then added: "I really shouldn't call her Laura. She's the first lady."

In her busiest campaign swing so far - six states packed into Monday and Tuesday - Mrs. Bush's main target was women, who polls show do not support her husband in the same numbers as men.

She is clearly aware of her image as a first lady who has not been involved in policy making or political infighting, and - except for comments on Monday in support of the president's policy on stem-cell research - she assiduously avoids contentious issues, never referring to her husband's opponent.

Instead, she delivered reliable applause lines this week to groups of small-business-owning women in Ohio, Wisconsin and Minnesota, reminding them that a woman, Condoleezza Rice, advised her husband on foreign policy and another, Margaret Spellings, advised him on domestic policy.

"This means that in the White House, women are in charge of everything abroad and everything at home," she said, breaking into a smile, "which sounds just about right to me."

She also assures women that Mr. Bush feels strongly about equal opportunity.

"And he has three strong women at home who won't let him forget it," she said of herself and their twin daughters.

Mrs. Bush's team carefully picks campaign stops that will bolster her wholesome, nonpolitician image, like a quilting shop in Minnesota or a flag store in North Toledo where she made an unannounced visit on Monday, hugging the owner, Howard Pinkley, and buying a $5.95 copy of a flag etiquette book called "Honor Our Flag."

While the first lady professes to be unpracticed in politics, she is clearly aware of what she can accomplish in campaigning. In a short interview on her plane as she returned to Washington at the end of the six-state trip, a reporter asked her what she hoped to achieve in speaking mostly to audiences of local Republican volunteers and other Bush supporters.

"Obviously I go to get in the news, to be on television and in the newspapers," she said, though adding that she also hoped she was "able to get out a message that's not always out in the media."

"I wouldn't say it was critical to the re-election effort," she said, "but I certainly want to do everything I can do to help him be re-elected."

She said that despite the spoken prenuptial agreement, often retold, in which Mr. Bush promised he would never force her to give a campaign speech, she had helped him campaign almost since the beginning.

"It's always really been more of a joke," she said of the agreement. "I gave speeches all the time when George was governor."

Mrs. Bush said she was often frustrated by being portrayed in the news media as shy and retiring, a reluctant speaker, someone who knows little about her husband's policies.

"Even when I do speak about policy," she said, her voice hoarse from its recent workout, "it's still sort of disregarded, and I think it's just a stereotype."

But few of her admirers seem to focus much on her message either. They appear happy simply to see her in person and find that she does not act much like a politician.

"I couldn't even get a good picture of her," Mrs. Duncan said in Grafton. "She's such a gracious Southern lady she doesn't even mug for the cameras. Now how about that?"