Obama Preaches a New Democratic Sermon

CHICAGO – Cool Heat. With a star turn at the South Side Martin Luther King Day breakfast and in quietly announcing his presidential bid with the launch of an exploratory committee website, Illinois senator Barak Obama is testing a very sophisticated version of the traditional Democratic brand.

Ripping a page out of Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter's playbook, Obama's willingness to embrace "faith" is setting the tone for a very different kind of Democratic campaign. While it's doubtful that Obama will make serious inroads within the evangelical community, his commitment to good, old-fashioned, all-American"values" provides him with the potential to deflect the swarm of arrows destined rankle any serious campaign.