Is Obama's campaign style the style of a future president?

... His references to his rivals are constant and, by and large, thinly veiled: becoming president, he says, has not been his “long-held ambition” (as has been suspected of both Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Edwards); it is not, he says, something he has craved “since kindergarten” (a reference to the Clinton campaign’s ridicule of a paper he penned, or perhaps crayoned, as a tot); the country is weary of “the same old arguments by the same old folks,” he says.

... Mr. Obama presents himself as the ultimate fresh face, untainted by the experience Mrs. Clinton trumpets as her prime asset. He appears out of nowhere, makes a big entrance on stage and tends to address his crowds as a singular civic unit (“Hello, Marshalltown”), like a real rock star would.

His events are slightly ragtag compared with his counterparts’. They draw younger people, many with Obama bumper stickers on their backs, as opposed to the smaller stickers placed neatly on the lapels of Mrs. Clinton’s supporters. Toddlers are more likely to be seen scurrying around Obama events, sometimes breaching forbidden areas, like TV camera risers.

... Mr. Obama’s “us’” and “we” reflect his unity campaign, the so-called new kind of politics. His “we” constitutes a prospective coalition of anyone bent on changing the political system — as opposed to “playing the game” within it, a tacit reference to the Clintons and their political mastery.

“Instead of sending someone to Washington to play the game, we need someone to change the game plan,” Mr. Obama said. “We are not a nation divided as our politics suggests.”

As he drills into specifics, Mr. Obama’s critique of Mrs. Clinton becomes plainer. He said deliberations on his health care legislation would not take place “in a back room,” a reference to Mrs. Clinton’s failed initiative in the 1990s, for which she was roundly slammed as being too secretive. He vows to invite C-Span to broadcast his health care deliberations, resulting in one of his most sustained and reliable applause lines.

... Excerpts from a New York Times article on the campaign styles of Clinton, Edwards, and Barack Obama