While Obama spoke in a calm and earnest tone, his language was sharper than usual. Just this week, Obama declined to use the word “lie” — despite entreaties from local supporters — when discussing falsehoods from the McCain campaign. Today’s rebuttal dispensed with such diplomacy. “Spare me the phony outrage,” Obama said, criticizing the “news media” for treating McCain’s false attack like “catnip.”

McCain’s ploy helped waste two of the last 55 days of this election, Obama pointed out, saying that Republicans can only win by distraction and distortion.

Ticking off populist policies on the economy, education and health care, Obama said the public backed his agenda, while there is not “a dime’s worth of difference between what [McCain's] offering and what we’ve already got.”

The press is repeating McCain's distortion of Obama's reference to the common cliche about "putting lipstick on a pig."

During questions at the event, one attendee asked Obama how he could beat Republican lies while prioritizing integrity within his campaign — citing the 2004 defeat of Sen. John Kerry as a cautionary tale.

Obama conceded that it was a challenge to “fight nonsense” about taxes from the McCain campaign. For example, it falsely claims that the Democratic nominee would raise taxes when, in fact, he would cut taxes for 95 percent of Americans.

“I still have faith that the truth will out, in the end,” Obama said, to a smattering of applause. “This whole thing about lipstick, nobody actually believes that these folks are offended,” he added, tweaking the party for PC hypocrisy.

“Everyone knows it’s insincere,” he added, “the media knows it! It’s a game; it’s a sport. Maybe if this wasn’t such a serious time that would be OK. But this is serious,” he stressed, reiterating his differences with McCain on education reform and Iraq.

As Obama voiced his optimism, however, the traveling press corps tapped away at a filing station in a small classroom here, churning out more headlines about a non-story created largely by the media, and repeatedly airing the McCain campaign’s false distortion of Obama’s remark.

It’s a sorry scene for the homestretch of this long, and important, campaign.

There’s more funding (for teachers and charter schools); more standards (to improve achievement); and more choice (for local “innovation” programs and open source classrooms).

Obama speaks at an Ohio school on Tuesday.

These policy events present something of an alternative campaign universe in targeted states. While the national press and political websites go gaffe-gorging, local papers cover Obama’s working class agenda. Take these headlines from this week’s Dayton Daily News, for example:

OBAMA ON EDUCATION: PARENTS MUST HELP
OBAMA TALKS WITH ABX WORKERS ABOUT JOBS
SUPPORTERS WAIT FOR CHANCE TO HEAR OBAMA

Local voters gain information by attending events or learning about them through their circle of friends. At each stop, I’ve watched campaign organizers ask attendees to sync their cell phones with Obama’s text message network. The campaign is also furiously registering new voters in red states like Virginia to buck the region’s Republican foundation. (It hasn’t gone blue since 1964.) Jay Newton-Small reports the early returns of that effort, in a new article today for Time.com:

Virginia is one of 10 states that went for President Bush in 2004 but that the Obama campaign believes will be [tight in November]… Since January alone more than 3.5 million new voters have been registered in 17 of the 23 states tracked closely by the Obama campaign where information is available…. [I]n 14 of the states at least half of the new voters are under 35, a key demographic for Obama. (emphasis added)

Obama’s education speeches have been depicted as an appeal to women voters, but they also resonate with young voters in general, whose priorities include education, along with Iraq and the economy, and could be crucial to Obama turning the tide here.

To even entertain McCain’s far-fetched attack, one would have to think Obama had a political death wish. Rather than attack Palin, however, Obama has spent the past few days praising her story and personal characteristics at each stop in Virginia, Ohio and Michigan. He has confined all his criticism to policy differences.

I was sitting at a press table in the Virginia gym as Obama rattled through two cliches to argue that the McCain/Palin ticket could not deliver change. First, Obama reached for a farm analogy: “You can put lipstick on a pig,” he said. “It’s still a pig.” Then he said, “you can wrap an old fish in a piece of paper called change. It’s still gonna stink.”

The pig cliche went from Politico to Drudge before Obama had left the stage.

The McCain camp pounced with an emergency conference call, and the press corps unthinkingly dug into the story.

McCain surrogate Jane Swift accused Obama of talking about Palin and demanded an apology. Swift said she thought Obama was referencing Palin because she is the only candidate who wears lipstick. I guess that means no one can take offense at the fish analogy, since none of the candidates are wrapped in newspaper.

This entire non-event — a candidate uses a common cliche in passing while answering a question about “change” — barely merits any reporting. It definitely isn’t worth the lead of The AP’s traveling report on what Obama did today, for example.

Don’t take my word for it; even the journalist who jump-started this drama said so. Amie Parnes, who I’ve been sitting next to this week on Obama’s plane, added this addendum to her short lipstick post:

The McCain campaign is now saying Obama called Palin a pig, which he didn’t. They also note that “lipstick is a fairly common idiom he often uses,” as in a recent Washington Post interview. McCain has also used the phrase…(emphasis added)

The Atlantic’s Marc Ambinder also swiftly debunked McCain’s ploy. But the distraction is already upending the news cycle. And I haven’t even seen a TV yet — since we’re en route to the airport.

This is the kind of blatantly false charge that works even when reported skeptically. Because, frankly, it shouldn’t be reported at all.

Campaign journalists don’t need to cover two sides to every lie — especially an outlandish gender card trick like this one.

For skeptical readers, I’ll note that I filed several policy pieces about Obama today, including one from the Lebanon event. I’m now wading into the pig ploy with the minor goal of providing some context from the road.

Actual sexism still infects American culture and U.S. politics, of course. But McCain and Palin undermine the fight for equality when they falsely and cynically stage fake offenses.

McCain’s decision to put a woman on his ticket was laudable and inspiring, (as I’ve written before), and regardless of the motives, it was good for the country.

McCain’s overall conduct is more significant than that one action, however. His cynical attempt to cloak his ticket in gendered victimhood is an offense to all women and men who value equality — and to any voters who still desire a campaign devoted to a truthful debate of the issues.

The Democratic presidential nominee also reprised several lines from his nomination acceptance speech, ridiculing the Republicans’ “ownership society” as code for “you’re on your own,” and contending that McCain simply “doesn’t get it.”

Obama’s aides are working hard to burnish his Virginia credentials. Today’s rally included introductions by several local figures. The most famous, bluegrass legend Ralph Stanley, announced his endorsement in remarks before the rally.

Prudence Dillon, 34, a teacher and mother of four, spoke about why Obama inspired her to volunteer in politics for the first time. Two other speakers touted Obama’s commitment to coal and local party-building, noting that he made more visits to Virginia than any other Democratic nominee.

One speaker went on a tear defending community organizers against Republican attacks, noting that Martin Luther King Jr. and Jesus were organizers.

Virgina legend Dr. Ralph Stanley endorsed Obama on Tuesday. (Photo credit: Matt Knoth)

“We are the Saudi Arabia of coal,” riffed Obama, as he promised to find a way to “burn coal” with “clean energy technologies.” He also repeated his pledge to take the $10 billion that America is spending in Iraq and invest it at home, drawing a standing ovation.

Obama’s Virginia effort strives for intimacy rather than stadium rallies. He not only took questions at the gym event — about stem-cell research, rural poverty and health care — but also stopped by a shake shop in Abingdon to mingle with a mere handful of customers.

There Obama happened on another legend, the 76-year-old “Big Daddy Garlits,” whom the senator recognized.

From the pool report:

‘This is the father of drag racing, right here!’ Mr. Obama said, introducing Mr. Garlits to the cameras. [Garlits] is known as the pioneer of drag racing for a career that spanned from 1950 to 2003. (He said he retired five years ago, ending with a 310 m.p.h. race.) He lives in Ocala, Fla., but he and his wife were visiting their daughter and came to Ellis Soda Shoppe for some ice cream…. [Garlits later noted that] he was mighty impressed with Mr. Obama and had watched his announcement speech in Springfield and his convention speech in Denver. A lifelong Republican, he said he was frustrated with Washington and undecided between Mr. Obama and Senator John McCain.

Obama was also asked about GOP attempts to ignite a “culture war” over Gov. Sarah Palin’s family. Obama reiterated that candidate’s familes are “off limits,” noting they were “civilians who didn’t choose to run for office.”

Even as the senator spoke, however, the McCain campaign was launching another salvo in cultural combat, disingenously claiming Obama supported “comprehensive sex education” for kindergartners.

Tuesday evening, Obama spokesperson Bill Burton called the attack “shameful and perverse,” explaining that the relevant legislation was actually designed to “protect young children from sexual predators.” “John McCain told Time magazine he couldn’t define what honor was,” Burton added. “Now we know why.”

Finally, Obama’s last question at the gym rally came from a 6th-grader named Payton, who wanted to know how the senator might bring down gas prices. Comitting to tell voters what they “need to hear,” Obama said gas prices weren’t returning to $2 a gallon, and the “only way we can really bring gas prices down long term” is to “start using energy differently,” as his energy plan proposes. (TWI background here.)

Obama’s September push shows he is serious about winning Virginia — which hasn’t voted for a Democratic president since 1964. The formula is relentless offense on economic populism — and swift defense against the cultural attacks that have bloodied so many Democrats here.

On Tuesday, the formula looked good enough to have Virginia Democrats pondering victory for the first time in generations.