McCain, Obama Battle for Authenticity Label

June 16, 2008 -- Tim Russert would be proud. The attribute most in demand in the early stages of this general election is a quality he had in spades: authenticity.

Yes, this campaign may yet be (and already has been, to an extent) about liberals and conservatives, taxes and wars, the Supreme Court and 527 groups and vice-presidential vetters.

But in the meantime, the rush for reality is on, emerging as the first high-stakes battle in the war between Sen. Barack Obama and Sen. John McCain -- a race that's likely to be waged squarely in the middle.

Close it will be: We're back to a virtual tie in Gallup's daily tracking -- Obama 44, McCain 42 following the first full week in post-primary mode.

And the casualties pile up in the annals of authenticity:

It means one fewer fundraiser for McCain in Texas on Monday.

A lesson for Obama in why guns and knives are dangerous metaphors.

It means the loser of the debate over debates may suffer more than the usual amount of damage.

(It even may have even cost Paul Tewes his eyebrows.)

And it brought Obama to a church pulpit in Chicago (no, not THAT church), as he continues the delicate task of defining a candidate the likes of which the nation hasn't seen before.

"It was a provocative speech," ABC's Jake Tapper reported on "Good Morning America" Monday. "The first major-party African-American presidential candidate in history took the opportunity of Father's Day to deliver some tough love to the African-American community."

Obama's Father's Day speech "invoked his own absent father to deliver a sharp message to black men, saying 'we need fathers to recognize that responsibility doesn't just end at conception,' " Julie Bosman writes in The New York Times. "In an address that was striking for its bluntness and where he chose to give it, Mr. Obama directly addressed one of the most delicate topics confronting black leaders: how much responsibility absent fathers bear for some of the intractable problems afflicting black Americans."

"The theme of fatherly responsibility is important for Obama, especially now that he is the presumed Democratic nominee for the White House," Jeff Long and Christi Parsons report in the Chicago Tribune. "While his dogma is decidedly liberal, his talk about personal responsibility crafts an appeal to religious conservatives and political centrists."

ABC's Sunlen Miller points out that Michelle Obama was in the front pew, alongside the couple's daughters, Malia and Sasha. "This was the first time the Obama family has attended church since formally cutting ties with their controversial Chicago church, Trinity United on May 31," she writes.

The battle is one where whoever represents the right fit for the "change" label could well win, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette's David Shribman writes. "[Obama] looks different, he talks about a world and a Washington that are different, and he ran for president in a fashion that was altogether different (with big money from small donors and a big push in caucus states, many of them small)," Shribman writes. "But then, Mr. McCain is different, too. He looks at the world in a way that is different, and he looks at Washington in a way that is way different, at least from regular Republicans. He is change in a shock of white hair."

Bloomberg's Al Hunt likes Obama's map: "Obama has changed the dynamics in medium-size and smaller states from four years ago. There are more than half a dozen 2004 red states -- Iowa, Colorado, New Mexico, Virginia, Nevada, Missouri, even Indiana and Montana -- where Obama is competitive. There are very few -- New Hampshire and Wisconsin -- that McCain can turn from Democrat to Republican."

That map may look different than we're used to: "Barack Obama's campaign envisions a path to the presidency that could include Virginia, Georgia and several Rocky Mountain states, but not necessarily the pair of battlegrounds that decided the last two elections --Florida and Ohio," Nedra Pickler and Philip Elliott write for the AP. "In a private pitch late last week to donors and former supporters of Hillary Rodham Clinton, Obama campaign manager David Plouffe outlined several alternatives to reaching the 270 electoral votes needed to win the White House that runs counter to the conventional wisdom of recent elections."

It's a powerful brand he's up against: "Sen. John McCain's reputation as a maverick who regularly bucks the conservative wing of his party will be a formidable obstacle for Sen. Barack Obama as he seeks to persuade moderates to vote for him in November," Joseph Curl writes in the Washington Times.

Or maybe it isn't. This should set off alarm bells in Arlington: "John McCain once had the most powerful brand in American politics," Paul West writes in the Baltimore Sun. "It wasn't too many years ago that 'maverick' was the cliche of choice in describing him. But that term didn't even make the list this year when voters were asked by the Pew Research Center to sum up McCain in a single word.

' 'Old' got the most mentions, followed by 'honest,' 'experienced,' 'patriot,' 'conservative' and a dozen more. The words 'independent,' 'change' or 'reformer' weren't among them," West continues. "Voters have notoriously short memories, but it could be argued that McCain cheapened his own brand."

McCain might be causing some mischief with the praise his team is offering for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y. "I assure you, with confidence, at the end of my first term you will see a dramatic increase of women in every part of the government, in my administration," McCain said Saturday at an event designed to reach out to Democrats and independents, per ABC's Bret Hovell.

Pay attention to Carly Fiorina: "The War for Women is on," per Newsweek's Jonathan Darman. "In the two weeks since Obama clinched the Democratic nomination, the GOP has pushed women to give its candidate a second look, lavishing praise on Clinton, wallpapering cable TV with female surrogates and, ever so discreetly, reminding female voters just how moderate McCain can be."

How many of these before we have a trend? Frustrated Clinton supporter Debra Bartoshevich gets written up by Craig Gilbert of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: "She's not alone in refusing to support Barack Obama. And she's not entirely alone in saying she'll vote this fall for Republican John McCain instead. But what makes her unusual is that she holds these views as an elected delegate to the Democratic National Convention in Denver this summer."

But not so fast: "Now that the Democratic marathon is over, Clinton supporters . . . are siding heavily with Obama over McCain, polls show," Michael Finnegan writes in the Los Angeles Times. "And Obama has taken a wide lead among female voters, belying months of political chatter and polls of primary voters suggesting that disappointment over Clinton's defeat might block the Illinois senator from enjoying his party's historic edge among women."

No progress yet on those town-hall forums, but another great quote has been tossed into the fight: "Barack Obama requires more preconditions to meet directly with John McCain and American voters than he does with Iran's [President] Mahmoud Ahmadinejad," McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds tells USA Today's Kathy Kiely. Kiely writes: "Both campaigns say talks are at a halt, but there's considerable outside interest in bringing the two candidates together for summertime meetings."