The Note: Barack's Blues

April 28, 2008 -- After spending the campaign answering questions about whether he's too green, too black, or too red (as in states where he's winning) -- and now that his opponents' husband has gone purple -- all Sen. Barack Obama has to do next is show that he's blue enough (of collar) to be president.

So polish that bowling ball. Polish off the last of that arugula. Make sure those shoes aren't too polished.

What really matters now in the Democratic race -- according to those who decide such things -- is that Obama, D-Ill., demonstrate that he is a Real Person.

Pennsylvania's choppy wake leaves Obama still ahead in the race but Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (herself trying to place her life and her campaign squarely in the working class) continuing to make things interesting.

There's lots of real people in Indiana and North Carolina, and many of them are actual voters who just might have something to say about who gets to conduct the band at next year's White House Correspondents' Association dinner.

Mostly, of course, superdelegates want a candidate that Real People don't find weird.

Said Obama, D-Ill., on "Fox News Sunday" (which stopped its "Obama Watch" at 772 days, on the same weekend that his former pastor chose for his media debut): "I've got to be more present. I've got to be knocking on more doors. I've got to be hitting more events. We've got to work harder," Obama said, per ABC's John Hendren.

(And did he open the door to more Wright coverage by saying that the comments of his long-time pastor are "a legitimate political issue"? Sen. John McCain thinks so.)

Time for some fresh life in Obamaland: "Mr. Obama was described [by aides and associates] as bored with the campaign against Mrs. Clinton and eager to move into the general election," Jeff Zeleny and Adam Nagourney write in The New York Times.

"So the Obama campaign is undertaking modifications in his approach intended to inject an air of freshness into his style. . . . Mr. Obama's advisers are also debating whether he should give another major speech intended to lay out themes of his candidacy -- particularly the change he would bring to Washington -- that they fear have been muddled in one of the toughest months of his campaign."

Don't miss this detail: "Back in Chicago, a more sophisticated operation was methodically checking in with superdelegates who had already pledged to Mr. Obama -- just to make certain there had not been any slippage."

"In a noteworthy shift, the Illinois senator is trying to reach working-class and middle-class voters by arguing more explicitly that the reform ideas driving his campaign can address the economic troubles that threaten their way of life," Alec MacGillis writes in The Washington Post.

"The shift comes amid signs that Sen. Obama's lofty appeals for hope and change may not be resonating with financially insecure voters, and may even be driving them away," Nick Timiraos writes in The Wall Street Journal.

Newsweek calls it the "Bubba Gap" -- and it's still the dominant storyline six days after Pennsylvanians voted: "What is just weird is this: how can it be that a black man running for president is accused of being too elitist?" Evan Thomas, Holly Bailey, and Richard Wolffe write. "Yet to pockets of America, he still seems to be the 'other.' "

"He seems a little strange, exotic; those cracked e-mails whispering about his middle name (Hussein) and declaring, fictitiously, that he is a Muslim who insisted on being sworn into office on the Qur'an rather than the Bible, keep buzzing around the Internet. To some, his manner is haughty; he is a bit of an egghead, one of those pointy-headed intellectuals whom George W. Bush liked to ridicule as a Deke brother at Yale."

Advice from Karl Rove: rework the stump speech, pick a new issue to push in Congress, and stop the attacks: "You have talent, intelligence and tapped into something powerful early in your campaign," Rove writes in Newsweek. "But running for president is unlike anything you've ever done. You're making mistakes and making people worry that you're an elitist. So while you'll almost certainly win the nomination, Democrats are nervous about the fall. You've given them reasons to be."

(At least he is -- undeniably -- a better basketball player than he is bowler. He nailed four field goals in his 3-on-3 pick-up game Friday night in hoops-crazed Indiana.)

The Chicago Tribune probes the "God Gap." "Buried within the exit polls from Pennsylvania are some signs that Obama's appeal may be worsening with culturally conservative regular churchgoers," the Tribune's Mike Dorning writes.

"Church-going among whites -- and in Pennsylvania Catholics are mostly white -- can be can be a marker for other traits. Older whites go to church more often than do younger whites. And whites without college degrees go to church in greater numbers than those with degrees. Both those groups are more supportive of Clinton."

It's one reason Obama made a surprise visit to a church in Indianapolis on Sunday. "During the service, he sang along to the different hymns, sat at attention during the sermon and even placed a donation in the offering plate as it was passed," Robert Annis reports in the Indianapolis Star.

Church, though, cuts both ways for Obama. The Rev. Jeremiah Wright continues his media blitz on Monday, with an 8:30 am ET speech at the National Press Club in Washington.

What is more Other than having a preacher who talks, sounds, and acts like Wright?

"Many in the corporate-owned media have made it seem that I'm running for the Oval Office. I've been running for Jesus for a long, long time, and I'm not tired yet," Wright said Sunday night at an NAACP event in Detroit, Kathleen Gray and Robin Erb report in the Detroit Free Press.

"I'm sorry your local political analysts are saying I'm polarizing and my sermons are divisive. I'm not here to address an analyst's opinion. I stand here as one representative of the African-American church tradition, believing that a change is going to come."

Another Wright soundbite Obama that may not need: "Barack HUSSEIN Obama, Barack HUSSEIN Obama," Wright said, per ABC's Jake Tapper. "Arabic is a language, it is not a religion. Stop trying to scare folks by giving them this Arabic name like it's some disease."

At his morning speech in Dallas, Wright referred to "my public crucifixion," Sam Hodges reports in The Dallas Morning News.

Wright's reemergence "is re-igniting a racially charged controversy at a time when Obama is trying to convince party leaders he can appeal to white, blue-collar voters critical to capturing the White House," Kathy Kiely writes in USA Today.

So the separation continues, in a week Obama would love to be talking about anything else: "I go to church not to worship a pastor but to worship God," Obama said on Fox News.

"The problem -- and I've pointed this out in my speech in Philadelphia -- was where often times he would error, I think, is in only cataloging the bad of America and not doing enough to lift up the good. And that's probably where he and I have the biggest difference."

Obama and Wright are becoming big stars: They're now featured in an attack ad being run by a Republican House candidate in Mississippi: "When Obama's pastor cursed America, blaming us for 9/11, [Travis] Childers said nothing," the ad says.

Politico's Ben Smith: "The spot marks Obama's rapid ascent in conservative demonology, to a place in an attack ad in a contested race that -- until several weeks ago -- would have been lent to Teddy Kennedy or Hillary Clinton."

The North Carolina GOP's Obama-Wright ad is set to start airing Tuesday, marking "the return of Jesse Helms-style politics," Rob Christensen writes for the Raleigh News & Observer.

Vice President Dick Cheney raises money in North Carolina on Monday -- intriguing timing.

And McCain, R-Ariz., is starting to get in on the act. "I saw yesterday some additional comments that have been revealed by Pastor Wright, one of them comparing the United States Marine Corps with Roman Legionnaires who were responsible for the death of our Savior, I mean being involved in that. It's beyond belief," McCain said, per ABC's Bret Hovell.

He also paraphrased Wright as "saying that al Qaeda and the American flag were the same flags."

"Up to now, Mr. McCain had largely avoided talking about the incendiary views of Mr. Wright, saying he wanted to run a 'respectful' campaign," Michael Cooper writes in The New York Times. "Mr. McCain's remarks [Sunday] were a shift in tone."