THE NOTE: Obama Finding New Voice on War

October 5 2007 — -- Maybe the campaign message Sen. Barack Obama was looking for was sitting on his lapel the whole time.

Or, more accurately, it was what wasn't on his suit jacket that got Obama, D-Ill., talking in the thoughtful, cerebral, and extremely non-political manner that seems more like his comfort zone than anything he says on the stump. Asked in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, why he doesn't choose to wear an American flag pin, Obama gave what sounded like a genuine answer:

"Shortly after 9/11, particularly because as we're talking about the Iraq War, that became a substitute for I think true patriotism, which is speaking out on issues that are of importance to our national security, I decided I won't wear that pin on my chest," Obama said, ABC's David Wright and Sunlen Miller report. "I'm going to try to tell the American people what I believe will make this country great, and hopefully that will be a testimony to my patriotism."

Wow -- who speaks like this? Certainly not someone who wants to become president, not in the old way -- and that's the point. Right-wing gabbers are buzzing about this (and "that pin," we should recall, depicts nothing more controversial than the stars and stripes) -- but is this even slightly bad for Obama with the Democratic base? Those would be the same folks he was trying to reach this week with a (quickly overshadowed) speech commemorating his longstanding opposition to the war.

Obama didn't plan the exchange -- it came in response to a reporter's question -- but he decided to embrace it. "Campaign aides, concerned that his remarks might be portrayed as unpatriotic, chose not to let the moment pass," The New York Times' Jeff Zeleny writes. "So Mr. Obama addressed the matter directly shortly after arriving here in Independence, where the crowd was oblivious to the back-and-forth." Said Obama: "My attitude is that I'm less concerned about what you're wearing on your lapel than what's in your heart."

By talking about his decision to drop the flag pin so openly, Obama "risked a backlash, even though most of the presidential candidates from both major parties aren't wearing the flag pins regularly these days," Michael Saul and Michael McAuliff write in the New York Daily News.

But if Democrats are sick of Bush-era jingoism, this could provide Obama a much-needed opening. Even Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., couldn't really disagree (and she's not much for pins, either): "There are so many ways that Americans can show their patriotism. Wearing a flag pin, flying the flag, pledging allegiance to the flag, talking about the values that are important to America, teaching your children about what a great nation we have, standing up for those values, speaking out -- there is just so many ways that one can demonstrate patriotism."

The AP's Nedra Pickler spells out Obama's keys to victory -- in Iowa (where his organization is cranking) and his nation-wide hope that "hundreds of thousands of new voters fired up enough to actually turn out." This sounds so simple: "1. Keep Clinton's support down. . . . 2. Keep Edwards from surging ahead. . . . 3. Continue building Obama's support among both traditional and nontraditional voters." Pickler writes, "The campaign is trying to drum up supporters who are often overlooked in politics, with much of the effort geared toward blacks and young people even high school seniors."

Lest we all forget, nobody's voted yet. The Boston Globe's Scot Lehigh catches up with a few former candidates who aren't ready to hand the nomination to Clinton. Gary Hart: "Voters have a very strange way of not listening to the pundits." John Kerry: "Crunch time really won't come until the last six weeks or so." Lehigh writes: "The bet here is that the Democratic campaign will become a real contest, and not an easy coronation -- no matter how much the Clinton camp might wish otherwise."

Now that the Republicans are done counting their money, we know that former mayor Rudolph Giuliani, R-N.Y., takes the GOP prize for the quarter (and was the last to report his numbers, to secure a victory lap). But does this seem a little like winning the Eastern Conference when you're just getting swept by the best of the West? "He raised $11 million for his presidential bid over the past three months, edging out his closest Republican competitor in the money chase but still posting a total that was half that of the leading Democratic candidates," Matthew Mosk writes in The Washington Post.

"Overall, Republican presidential candidates trailed Democrats in fundraising by nearly $100 million -- a gap that is unprecedented in 30 years," Mosk continues. GOP strategist Ed Rollins: "The Democrats, they're out there, they're hungry. We just got fat, dumb, and happy."

Other key GOP figures: $10 million last quarter for former governor Mitt Romney, R-Mass.; $9.3 million for former senator Fred Thompson, R-Tenn., in his first quarter in the race; and $6 million (still with just $3.6 million cash on hand) for Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.

But the biggest story could be the extent to which Romney is leaning on his personal fortune. His money is just as green, but what happened to the unstoppable fundraising operation he constructed early this year? Romney has now lent his campaign $17.4 million so far this year, including $8.5 million last quarter; he has only $9 million in cash on hand. "Mr. Romney has been raising more money than he has lent himself, a sign that his bid is more than a vanity campaign. Still, Mr. Romney continues to lag in most national polls," writes The Wall Street Journal's Mary Jacoby.

The American Spectator's Jennifer Rubin picks up on the Romney burn rate. "First, had Romney not dumped $8.5M of his own money in he'd have been left with $500,000 -- one tenth of Ron Paul's cash on hand. Second, Romney folks will argue so what? They still get to buy ads and they still have that money to fund a multi-state effort," Rubin writes. "Finally, Republicans should be scared. Hillary added 100,000 donors this Quarter and Romney 23,000."