Personas changing as race heats up

Obama, McCain seem to shift roles

When their general election matchup took shape earlier this summer, Senators Barack Obama and John McCain assumed divergent personas on the campaign trail.

Obama was the political celebrity, vaulted to the Democratic nomination less by his Washington resume and policy positions than his compelling life story and adoring fans. McCain was the less lustrous and charismatic figure, but, with half a century of service to the military and government, he emphasized substance and heft.

How times have changed.

In a notable role reversal, Obama, seeking to answer criticism that he wasn't being specific enough, is campaigning on policy substance and meaty issues. McCain, trying to obscure his commonalities with an unpopular president, is celebrating his biography, especially his 5 1/2 years as a prisoner-of-war in Vietnam.

The overarching themes of the Democratic ("The Change We Need") and Republican ("Country First") conventions over the past two weeks reflected the shift, and so have the rivals' campaign stops: While Obama this week has engaged in long, dry question-and-answer sessions with voters, McCain and his new running mate, Governor Sarah Palin of Alaska, spent their first post-convention day yesterday rallying big, boisterous Obama-esque crowds in Wisconsin and Michigan.

(McCain's campaign, which has relished mocking Obama's rock-star reputation, even handed out press credentials with a silhouetted image of a drum kit.)

McCain's surprise pick of Palin only underscores the new dynamic.

Though McCain lauds her as a government reformer, it is clear he and his campaign are more enamored with her colorful, working-class Alaskan background.

"John has picked a reform-minded, hockey-mommin', basketball shooting, moose hunting, salmon-fishing, pistol-packing mother of five for vice president," McCain's wife, Cindy, said in introducing her husband at the GOP convention Thursday night.

Obama has seized on a recent comment McCain's campaign manager, Rick Davis, made to The Washington Post - that the election is "not about issues" but about "a composite view of what people take away from these candidates" - to make an argument once made against him: that McCain has to resort to his personal story because he lacks solutions for the economy.

"Personalities? I mean, I've got a pretty good personality," Obama said yesterday in Pennsylvania, according to the Associated Press. "But that's not why I'm running for president."

Though McCain and his supporters still knock Obama's celebrity, Republicans have homed in on his policy proposals - particularly his plan to raise taxes, though they don't acknowledge that the increases would only hit the wealthiest Americans.

At the same time, focusing on McCain's background is a way for Republicans to raise questions about Obama's.

Analysts say that the changed dynamic in the race reflects strategic choices by Obama and McCain to address their weaknesses, a typical pivot once presidential contenders reach the fall.

"The biography alone is not selling it for Obama - he's gotta do something to close that sale," said David Johnson, a Republican pollster and cofounder of the firm Strategic Vision.

With McCain, he said, "People respect him, they think he knows the issues. Now they have to like him."

Sasha Issenberg of the Globe staff contributed to this report from Sterling Heights, Mich.

Scott Helman can be reached at shelman@globe.com.