newspaper then described her as a "Chicago corporate executive and civic leader."

Ah, Chicago: the lady is another old hand from the Windy City, all over the news these days as political machination and corruption darken the rosy glow of Obama's election victory. The relationship between Obama and Rogers, however, is as revealing of the way things work as the buffoonery of the state governor trying to sell Obama's senate seat, or the jailing of his old financial sponsor, slum landlord Tony Rezko.

It began with another Ivy League connection: Michelle Obama's brother Craig Robinson played on the Princeton basketball team with Rogers's now-ex-husband John Rogers, who is the chief executive of a $16bn investment bank, Ariel Capital Management.

They all met in Chicago, where Michelle's father was in politics too. The Rogers settled on Chicago's Gold Coast, and had a daughter. Desiree forged her own career in both business and society: she went through jobs at the telephone giant AT&T, at a local property and restaurant company, the Illinois State Lottery - a job in the gift of the governor - and then as an executive at the Peoples Energy company, supplying natural gas.

She sat on the boards of Chicago institutions - resigning from the Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art to protest slow progress on "diversity issues". And she threw parties for the players in the city's political machine, most recently a 52nd birthday bash for Obama's mentor, Valerie Jarrett, who he is taking to the White House too.

This year, she has given $100,000 to the committee seeking the 2016 Olympics for Chicago, and held $1,000-a-plate fundraisers for Obama. In 2004, she did the same for George Bush, but Obama is enough of a seasoned politician to forgive that.

Last week, Rogers met Michelle for dinner in a Chicago hotel to find out what Obama "had in mind" for his White House. "It was this whole idea of having people feel comfortable," she later told local columnist Lynn Sweet. "And having people be able to develop relations that are really deep."

Washington is hoping that the former Zulu Queen can bring New Orleans zest to the White House after Bush's years of prayers and early bedtimes, and everyone wants to know how to get a ticket to the ball.