Michelle Obama isn't the superstitious sort, even with Halloween coming up and her daughters, Sasha and Malia, preparing to ditch the pink fairy princess routine and be really scary this year as the "corpse bride" and "black fairy," respectively.

With a lead in the polls and the third debate between her husband, Sen. Barack Obama, and Sen. John McCain receding into the rearview mirror, Mrs. Obama says she's keeping her head down and her fingers crossed.

"I don't verbally own a victory out loud," she said in an interview after appearing at a boisterous midday rally at Soldiers & Sailors Memorial Hall and Museum in Oakland yesterday, attended by 2,100.

"Some people want to talk about, 'Oh, won't it be great when ...' and I say, unh-unh, we have to get there first. So I don't allow myself to go there. I keep myself in the moment of the work we have to do to get there. We're at the end of the road now, and my goal is to just get people focused on what is at stake."

Mrs. Obama's visit -- which included a trip to the North Side for a private fund-raiser at the home of Steelers owner Dan Rooney -- was her third to Pittsburgh since her husband announced he was running for president.

Some elements of her populist-tinged, 45-minute stump speech were familiar -- the talk of her and her husband's working-class roots and the sacrifices of their parents and grandparents, and some new references, too -- to the Wall Street financial crisis and the struggling economy, and it how affects everyone.

"This is personal because we're all feeling it now. We feel it when we put $20 in the gas tank and that $20 doesn't do anything anymore," she said, exhorting the audience to talk to their neighbors and to vote early in the day so they'd be able to help get others to the polls.

"There are 19 days left, but that is nothing. We have to work like we're 20 points behind," she said.

Even as the clock ticks down to Nov. 4, Mrs. Obama said she is trying to keep to a normal schedule for the sake of her two daughters, although things "may ratchet up a bit" in the next few weeks.

Last weekend, there was a trip to a Party City store near her home in Chicago to purchase those Halloween costumes, although she isn't going to dress up. "I never do," she said. "Halloween is Barack's holiday, although he won't be able to trick or treat this year."

Told that a Halloween mask of her husband's face was the number one best seller, she seemed momentarily stunned.

"No. Good grief," she said.

And what of all the recent talk of race, and how it remains the unknown factor in this campaign?

She has been amazed "at how decent and kind and open" people have been, she says, "and that's been 99 percent of my experience."

"We've gotten through 20 months of a race with the first woman, the first African-American running as a credible candidate, the first Republican woman on the ticket," she said. "Those are a lot of firsts, and the country has handled this admirably."

Later, at the fund-raiser, which was attended by about 50 people -- including Teresa Heinz, Franco Harris, broadcasting executive Ron Davenport and assorted big donors -- several dozen people gathered on the sidewalk outside hoping for a glimpse.

But her motorcade pulled into a driveway and she was escorted into the Rooney house through a side door, to disappointed groans from her fans.

"This election is the most important in my lifetime, and I'm no kid," Mr. Rooney told the group, adding that he was sold on Mr. Obama after they had breakfast together on the morning of the Pennsylvania primary.

"Barack loves you to death," she said to Mr. Rooney. "And he loves those pancakes, too. He talks about those pancakes once a month."

Then she launched into a passionate if somewhat shorter version of her earlier speech, with something new added -- evidence, perhaps, that she really is allowing herself to think the unthinkable.

With enough work and commitment in the next few weeks, she said in a voice that sounded almost disbelieving, "I might be the next first lady of the United States. Now that's the American dream."