The presidential candidate in seat 21B

Not many folks seemed to notice the other morning as passengers – vacationers and business people – clambered on board U.S. Airways Flight 3027, from Washington to Columbia, S.C.

The flight was half an hour late; aren’t they all these days? It was cramped in there; aren’t they all these days? And there, among everybody else, like anybody else, was a man who would be leader of the free world, a would-be president of the United States, Republican candidate John McCain. He was beginning yet another two-day campaign swing.

McCain drew little notice from his fellow passengers and walked through the Columbia airport virtually unnoticed. He got a warm reception at this month’s meeting of the Rotary Club. “This is what elections and politics in America should be all about – face-to-face meetings,” McCain told the crowd, “not who can buy the most media.”

McCain is making a virtue out of necessity. He can’t afford to buy media. He travels with a lone aide. “I’m going to be the next president of the United States,” he says, “because I can out-campaign any of them.”

Obama pauses to be a dad

Can a presidential candidate actually drop in to the Iowa State Fair – where countless candidates have let themselves be seen flipping pork chops and licking ice cream cones before extending a sticky handshake to potential caucus voters – and have any fun?

Or more precisely, can anyone have any fun when surrounded by a Secret Service protective detail, several dozen photographers, TV crews and news reporters? Sen. Barack Obama, arriving after the sun went down one night last week, actually seemed to. He brought the whole family – wife Michelle, 9-year-old Malia and 5-year-old Sasha.

Obama the politician postponed a radio interview while Obama the dad warily took a ride on Big Ben at the firm insistence of excited Malia, who sat next to him.

Big Ben is a ride for the intrepid. It catapults people straight up into the air fully 125 feet and then dangles them there for a while, contemplating the height and shock of what just happened, before hopefully easing them safely back to earth.

Malia looked delighted throughout. Obama’s face during the catapult looked stunned, like “How did I get myself into this?” reports The Times’ Peter Nicholas, who is covering the campaign.

Back on the ground, Obama regained his composure. “Did you hear me screaming like a little girl?” he asked. “The things you do for a 9-year-old.”

The bumper cars were a real chance to work through some aggression. Maybe they should be part of every presidential debate? With his youngest, Sasha, riding shotgun, Obama dutifully obliged the other riders who wanted a head-on collision with possibly the next leader of the free world. How many times do you get that chance?

Passing his wife, piloting a separate car, Obama caught her eye and broke into a wide smile that seemed to say: “Is this the silliest thing ever?”

Hillary’s Magic vs. Obama’s Oprah

Celebrities dueling over politicians. Or politicians

dueling with politicians via celebrities.

Do you remember all the hubbub a few weeks ago when talk show diva and billionaire Oprah Winfrey announced her support for fellow Chicagoan Barack Obama and agreed to throw an exclusive fundraiser for him at her home Sept. 8?

Well, Hillary Clinton’s campaign has announced that Magic Johnson will host a fundraiser for her at his house six days later. Co-hosts of the celebrity event will be musician Quincy Jones, a longtime supporter of both Clintons; Berry Gordy, the founder of the Motown music empire; and Clarence Avant,

a longtime music industry

executive.

Clinton responded, “I am honored to have such Magical and fabulous support.”

And the nice thing for Hollywood’s hard-pressed celebrities, being pressured to pick sides in this Democratic fray, is that the events are on different nights.

The costs of lobbying

Washington’s traditional career path is politician-turned-lobbyist. Fred Thompson, when he finally enters the Republican presidential race, will test the political cost of taking the opposite route.

Before he won his Tennessee Senate seat in 1994, Thompson toiled for years as a lawyer who specialized in greasing the wheels of government (while also beginning his acting

career).

Politico.com spotlights a controversial project he promoted, which it characterizes as “one of his home state’s biggest government-funded boondoggles.”

The Politico’s Kenneth P. Vogel gets to the nub of the challenge looming for Thompson in writing: “It’s a part of his past that runs counter to the fiscally conservative outsider image he’s seeking to cast… .”

The venture in question is the Clinch River nuclear breeder reactor, an experimental enterprise near and dear to the heart of Thompson’s political benefactor, former Sen. Howard H. Baker (R-Tenn.).

Excerpted from The Times’ political blog, Top of the Ticket, at www.latimes.com/ topoftheticket.