Los Angeles - One is the prim blond heiress to a beer fortune, who had an addiction to prescription drugs and worked for charities around the world.

The other worked her way out of her family's one-bedroom Chicago apartment to graduate from two of America's best universities and become a successful lawyer, inspiring speaker and unpretentious media darling.

As much as their husbands differ on their plans and visions for America, Cindy McCain and Michelle Obama offer different visions for the country's next first lady after Tuesday's election.

CINDY MCCAIN

Cindy Lou Hensley, 54, grew up in Phoenix, Arizona, in a sprawling and imposing house on the best street in the city. She inherited an estimated 100-million-dollar fortune when her father died - money that came from his pioneering statewide beer distributorship which introduced refrigerated warehouses for beer.

Her mother Marguerite was refined, polite and taught Cindy the manners of high society.

The young Cindy was a state junior rodeo champion but also the best-dressed girl at her school, according to her senior yearbook. Armed with a masters degree in education from the University of Southern California, Hensley worked briefly as a special education teacher in a Phoenix-area high school.

At age 25, she met the middle-age Naval officer John McCain at a party in Honolulu. Though he was married and 18 years older, they married within the year.

"Having a strong father, I wanted an older man," she told Harper's Bazaar.

For young John McCain, it was a dream marriage - providing him with a fortune to fund his campaigns and even a receptive Western state to establish a political base. The couple owns at least eight properties, too many for McCain to remember when asked recently.

Cindy McCain became addicted to painkillers after an injury, using forged prescriptions for the medical supplies from an overseas charity she created and funded called the American Voluntary Medical Team. But the public revelations did not throw her husband's political path which took him to the US Senate off track.

Cindy also had business ties to Charles Keating, the failed banker whom McCain tried to intervene for in one of his most embarrassing political scandals.

The couple had three children, then adopted their fourth in 1991 when Cindy found an abandoned Bangladeshi baby during one of her charity trips abroad.

Although she has campaigned energetically for her husband, Cindy McCain never seems entirely comfortable doing so.

She made headlines when she criticized Michelle Obama for saying she hadn't been really proud of her country until she saw the response the Democratic candidate got around the country, and when she alleged that Obama had voted against funding to US troops, which "sent a chill" down her spine because her son is serving in Iraq.

McCain says she supports a traditional role for a first lady, wants to continue her charity work if her husband is elected and mentions the late Diana, Princess of Wales, as her role model.

Despite John's 25 years in Congress, Cindy never moved to Washington and has steadfastly remained at homes in Arizona and California.

MICHELLE OBAMA

If Barack Obama is sometimes called the black John F Kennedy, his wife Michelle, 44, is compared to Jacqueline Kennedy. But there are important differences. While she exudes the charm and natural sophistication of the style-setting former first lady, she is also a product of a very different time, an independent and devoted working mom who proudly shops at high street fashion chains and delivers a powerful punch from the podium to boot.

She was born Michelle Robinson and grew up in a one-bedroom apartment on Chicago's south side where her mother, a former secretary, still lives. Her father was an employee at the city's water plant.

A bright and motivated student, she studied at Princeton and Harvard Law School, then worked at a Chicago law firm where she met Barack Obama, who was an intern. She at first resisted his advances, but she eventually relented. They married in 1992.

Her work path took her to Chicago's City Hall, then to a non- profit organization that encouraged youngsters to work on social issues. She later developed student services for the University of Chicago and currently works as a part-time vice president at the University of Chicago Hospital, a job that allows her to care for two young daughters and help her husband's campaign.

Michelle Obama's assertiveness and openness have been a mixed blessing. Her most famous blip came when she said that because of the success of her husband and his grassroots supporters, "for the first time in my adult lifetime I'm really proud of my country."

She was targetted by barbs from the right-leaning Fox News, where a commentator once called her "Obama's baby mama," a derogatory term for an unmarried black mother, and where an affectionate fist bump shared by the couple on stage was described as a "terrorist fist jab."

But there is little doubt that she is an important asset to the campaign. She is a strong orator, and Obama's primary sounding board. "You want to know how Barack prepares for a debate? He hangs out with me, and he's ready," she said recently.

For a potential first lady, she displays an amazing lack of pretension - revealing Obama's slovenly home habits in numerous interviews and often giving the impression of caring more about her motherly duties than her political ones, meaning she spends as much time at home as possible.

"Our lives are so close to normal, if there is such a thing when you're running for president," Michelle has said. "When I'm off the road, I'm going to Target to get the toilet paper, I'm standing on soccer fields, and I think there's just a level of connection that gets lost the further you get into being a candidate." (dpa)