The Note: Gotta Have Faith

July 1, 2008 -- If you have faith that four flags (plus one flag pin) can solve all of Barack Obama's patriotism problems . . .

You probably also believe that one phone call can solve all of Obama's Clinton problems.

That the Clinton campaign's infighting would have ended with the Clinton campaign.

That Obama's policy migration is set to end any time now.

Surely you're convinced that one denunciation will be enough to end the storm kicked up by one retired general (who isn't backing down, and who, at the very least, shrank Obama's short list by one).

You may even believe that the best way to tag someone a Swift-boater is with a member of the original cast (takes one to know one, perhaps, but why muddle the message?).

And that Obama's latest message -- on faith as policy -- will break through with Clark-like clarity.

An Obama zag -- one that zings: "Reaching out to evangelical voters, Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama is announcing plans that would expand President Bush's program steering federal social service dollars to religious groups and -- in a move sure to cause controversy -- support their ability to hire and fire based on faith," the AP's Jennifer Loven reports.

With Obama set to talk about faith in Ohio, more to set that agenda: "Between now and November, the Obama forces are planning as many as 1,000 house parties and dozens of Christian rock concerts, gatherings of religious leaders, campus visits and telephone conference calls to bring together voters of all ages motivated by their faith to engage in politics," John M. Broder reports in The New York Times. "It is the most intensive effort yet by a Democratic candidate to reach out to self-identified evangelical or born-again Christians and to try to pry them away from their historical attachment to the Republican Party."

Will his message break through?

Wesley Clark's comments are poor politics, poor timing, and poor luck for Sen. Barack Obama. Obama's latest effort to declare his love of country is snared in a made-for-the-news-environment thicket, when an Obama supporter went where no Democrat really wants to go.

Obama's effort to overcome the "old politics" of charge, counter-charge meaninglessness is now bogged down in one of those very cycles -- of his own side's making.

"Even as Obama repeated his call for a new brand of politics that avoids personal attacks, the day was dominated by an old-style clash over the military credentials of his Republican opponent," Peter Nicholas and Maeve Reston report in the Los Angeles Times.

Why it's toxic: "To this day, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., can't raise his arms above his shoulders because of injuries he suffered serving his country," ABC's David Wright reports."That's why comments made Sunday on CBS's 'Face the Nation' by an Obama supporter have kicked up a hornet's nest."

Tee up McCain, responding to Clark: "It's quite remarkable, but that's what the Obama campaign has been doing for a long period of time," McCain said while campaigning in Pennsylvania. "Fine -- but then don't turn around and say we're going to have a different kind of politics. This is politics as usual."

"Today Obama moves shifts his political offensive from patriotism to faith. It is an issue Democrats have shied away from . . . but not Obama," ABC's John Berman reported on "GMA" Tuesday. "But in the Obama campaign's zeal for offense, some surrogates might be taking things too far."

And Clark isn't backing down: "I would never discredit anyone who chose to wear the uniform. I fully respect John McCain and his service," he told ABC's Robin Roberts on "Good Morning America" Tuesday.

"My point is that there's a difference in preparing yourself for the highest office of the land, depending on which levels you've served at in the armed forces," Clark said. "The service as president is about judgment, and the experience that he had as a fighter pilot isn't the same as being at the highest levels of the military."

(Pardon us, but is Wes Clark running for president -- again?)

He continued: "I'm very sorry that this has distracted from the message of patriotism that Sen. Obama wants to put out, but I want to make very clear that as a Democrat and as a former Army officer, I fully respect Sen. McCain and all others who've served."

Add one more off-message commenter to the mix: Rand Beers, another informal adviser to the Obama campaign, on Monday argued that McCain's "isolation during the Vietnam War has hobbled the Arizona senator's capacity as a war-time leader," per ABC's Teddy Davis and Molly Hunter.

Said Beers: "To some extent his national security experience in that regard is sadly limited, and I think it is reflected in some of the ways that he thinks about how U.S. forces might be committed to conflicts around the world."

Is it possible that these are just the attacks McCain needs to get back in this game?

"Several of Mr. McCain's supporters said they needed to act quickly and decisively against attempts to challenge their candidate's war record because it had been unfairly impugned in his 2000 presidential campaign, when he was accused of having sold out prisoners of war left alive in Vietnam," Josh Gerstein writes in the New York Sun.

You might pity the candidates -- if they hadn't brought it on themselves: "The terse exchanges between the rivals, echoed even more vociferously by their campaign representatives and surrogates, underscored a central question both candidates are grappling with: How do they present themselves as practicing a new kind of politics, while they, and particularly their allies, are still pointing out flaws in each other?" Jeff Zeleny writes in The New York Times.

It comes in a bad week for Obama -- with patriotism the subject Monday, and faith on tap Tuesday. "Mr. Obama's effort to highlight his American values, delivered in a 30-minute address before a backdrop of flags, was complicated by the comment from General Clark," Zeleny writes.

Here's been here before -- but it's never easy: "His speech on race, given in Philadelphia in March, was hailed for its candor and eloquence, and in the days that followed it, he quickly moved back to the central themes of the primary campaign: the economy and the Iraq war," Jonathan Weisman and Michael Shear write in The Washington Post.

"But just as Wright has not disappeared from the political landscape, no one expects the patriotism question to be quelled with one speech. This time, campaign aides say, Obama will stick with the theme of patriotism through this Fourth of July week, when he will travel to conservative-leaning regions of eastern Ohio, the Mountain West and the Northern Plains," they write.

"The very fact that Obama chose to give a 'major' speech on patriotism (as he did on race earlier this year) is a recognition by the candidate and his campaign that questions over his loyalty to America -- no matter how unfounded they may be -- have the potential to do his campaign real damage," Washingtonpost.com's Chris Cillizza writes. "To counter that dangerous perception, the campaign is using its best asset -- Obama himself -- to speak at a deeply personal level about what patriotism means to him."