CHARLOTTE, N.C. – First lady Michelle Obama lovingly praised her husband Tuesday night in a prime-time Democratic Convention speech as a devoted spouse and caring father at home and a "man we can trust" to revive the nation's weak economy as president, beckoning the country to return him to the White House despite agonizingly slow recovery from recession.

"He reminds me that we are playing a long game here ... and that change is hard, and change is slow and it never happens all at once," she told a nation impatient with slow economic progress and persistently high unemployment of 8.3 percent. "But eventually, we get there, we always do," she said in a speech that roused Democrats packed into their convention arena and blended scenes from almost 20 years of marriage with the Obamas' time in the White House.

Mrs. Obama, given a huge ovation and emotionally describing herself as the "mom in chief," made no mention of Republican challenger Mitt Romney. But those who preceded her to the podium on the first night of the president's convention were scathing.