"Barack Obama was chatting with Katrina Davis, a Missouri woman whose daughter was hospitalized with a heart ailment, when he turned the talk to the half-dozen 7-year-olds who had slept over for his daughter's birthday.

"I know Chuck E. Cheese," Obama said as a group of reporters looked on. "That's as noisy a place as there is on Earth."

In his march to the Democratic presidential nomination, the Illinois senator has demonstrated an ability to mesmerize 20,000 people in an arena, but for all his sudden fame, most voters know little about the texture of his life. Now, in ways large and small, he and his staff are trying to add some dabs of color to a gauzy portrait, using media coverage to convey the sense of a down-to-earth fellow.

Here he is on Jimmy Kimmel's late-night show, chatting about how his daughters like to make pancakes with whipped cream on Sundays before they go off to church.

There he is with his wife on the cover of Us Weekly, released the same day that Michelle Obama locked arms with Barbara Walters and talked about her disdain for pantyhose on "The View."

Here he is riding his bike in a helmet and tucked-in polo shirt, joking afterward that he figured the press would portray him like Michael Dukakis "wearing that tank helmet" and that some bloggers "said I looked like Urkel."

There he is with his first general-election ad, showcasing his single mom and grandparents who "taught me values straight from the Kansas heartland."

Obama's staff says no artifice is involved. "The most extraordinary thing about him, maybe the most surprising, is how normal he is," says David Axelrod, his chief strategist. "He'll read Foreign Policy magazine, a treatise on economic policy and Sports Illustrated."

The outlines of Obama's life are well known. The son of a Kenyan father who abandoned him, he rocketed to success: Harvard Law School, best-selling author, Illinois lawmaker, freshman senator who seized the nomination from Hillary Clinton, preaching the audacity of hope to large and boisterous crowds.

But there is a less flattering side. For weeks, the most relentlessly reported fact about him was that he was a member of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright's church. He was mocked for asking an Iowa crowd about the price of arugula at Whole Foods, a store with no outlets in the state, and for rolling gutter balls at a Pennsylvania bowling alley. As he struggled with working-class voters, New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd said that "his exclusive Hawaiian prep school and years in the Ivy League made him a charter member of the elite."

Obama strategists say there is no grand plan to overhaul their man's image. "Sometimes a bike ride with your family is just a bike ride with your family," says press secretary Bill Burton.

But few things are left to chance in a presidential campaign, especially media venues. "We're doing everything we can to reach voters where they are," Burton says. "A pretty small percentage of voters read The Washington Post."

Candidates routinely try to sell their preferred personal narrative, and recent history confirms that such things matter. When John Kerry went windsurfing in 2004, President Bush's campaign used the footage to mock the Democratic nominee. President Bill Clinton famously vacationed in Jackson Hole, Wyo., where he was photographed riding a horse and wearing a cowboy hat, after pollster Dick Morris determined that would be more popular than another Martha's Vineyard retreat. And George H.W. Bush discovered a love for pork rinds in his 1988 campaign.

In posing for Us Weekly, Obama is stealing a page from Clinton, who appeared on People's cover with Hillary and Chelsea after clinching the 1992 nomination, at a time when research showed many people didn't even know he had a daughter.

Us Weekly Editor Janice Min says the Obama campaign immediately agreed to the request by her magazine, whose soft-focus profile dealt with such matters as Michelle Obama shopping at Target and enjoying "Sex and the City." "It was a clear win for them," she says. "To me, Barack Obama and Michelle Obama have that certain air of celebrity about them that not many politicians end up having."

Todd Harris, a Republican strategist who worked for John McCain's 2000 campaign, says Obama is in danger of being pigeonholed because of his Harvard pedigree and remarks about "bitter" small-town residents who cling to religion and guns.

"The cement has already been set to label Obama as an elitist," Harris says. "Whether his campaign lets it dry will be up to what they do. The idea is to make him someone the average swing voter in the Midwest can relate to."

The challenge may be slightly greater for Obama because of his unusual name, biracial heritage and early childhood in Indonesia. "When you're famous but not well known, you're an empty vessel that can be filled up by one side or the other," says Chris Lehane, a strategist for Al Gore's 2000 campaign. "You try to find social signifiers that people will be drawn to." This is particularly true, he says, for "an African American who by definition needs to appeal to folks who may not have had a lot of interaction with African Americans on a daily basis."

McCain has not mounted a comparable effort. He is occasionally photographed barbecuing ribs at his Arizona ranch and has been interviewed by Jon Stewart and Ellen DeGeneres. His wife, Cindy, did a photo shoot for Vogue and also appeared on "The View," while his daughter Meghan maintains a lighthearted blog. McCain has been on the national stage for two decades, and aides believe his image is well defined.

McCain strategists also recognize that Obama is treated as a phenomenon and simply draws more media coverage. Since 2006, Obama has been featured on 11 Time and Newsweek covers (and Michelle Obama has one appearance), compared with five for McCain.

While Obama is a talented orator, there is a natural reserve about him when he meets with small groups. While touring the St. Louis hospital, he politely questioned several heart patients and wished them well but displayed no real emotion. The campaign's aim is to convey a warm and relaxed person who, despite his deficient bowling skills, can relate to the concerns of working Americans.

Linda Douglass, Obama's spokeswoman, told Time's Mark Halperin that Obama "is a serious movie and TV buff. To test his knowledge of 'The Godfather,' I asked him who betrayed Michael Corleone by setting up the meeting with Barzini: Clemenza or Tessio? He rolled his eyes and said, 'Tessio, of course.' He added that Tessio was played by Abe Vigoda, who, he pointed out, was also on the TV show 'Barney Miller.' "

That tidbit was widely picked up after Halperin posted it June 6 on Time.com. Douglass has also asked Obama about his cooking skills, telling a reporter that he enjoys making curry and Chinese dishes. She calls Obama "the most normal person I've ever met" running for president.

It is practically required these days for candidates to work the entertainment shows -- Obama danced with DeGeneres, for instance -- as a way of showcasing their lighter side. But the Obama effort has intensified lately. On Father's Day, he used a Chicago church to talk about how his father abandoned him at age 2, while hailing "two wonderful grandparents from Kansas who poured everything they had into helping my mother raise my sister and me."

Sports can serve as a common denominator. When Gore was being painted as an egghead in earth tones, Lehane says, aides had him run a few plays with the Pittsburgh Steelers and pitch batting practice to the Detroit Tigers as a way of courting fans. Such lessons have not been lost on the Obama camp.

Obama's love of basketball is well known. But it wasn't until April that HBO's "Real Sports" was allowed to air footage of him on the court. "I can't imagine more fun than having a good pickup basketball game," he told host Bryant Gumbel, especially "when you're actually hitting some shots." It didn't hurt that he scored the game-winning layup.

The jock narrative continued when Obama's traveling aide, Reggie Love, told the New York Times how the two men wind down after a long day by watching ESPN's "SportsCenter." And Obama repeatedly played hoops before the cameras during the final primaries, in one case with the University of North Carolina Tar Heels.

Such images can be an asset in neutralizing the false rumors that have been dogging Obama. "Where there are gaps in knowledge, there's always the danger of misinformation," Axelrod says.

The media can also serve as a megaphone. After the Chicago biking excursion two weeks ago, Boston Herald columnist Margery Eagan wrote: "It's hard to get Willie Hortoned -- turned into the radical black guy who gives white America the heebie jeebies -- when you look as suburban, as unchic, as let's-hop-in-the-Explorer-and-head-to-Costco wonky as Obama looks in this oh-no! photo."" (Howard Kurtz, Media Notes, The Washington Post, June 23, 2008)