The Stork Factor

What else can he do?

Politico's Carrie Budoff Brown reports: At a press avail in Monroe, Mich., Barack Obama on Palin: "Back off these kinds of stories."

This story - Sarah Palin's daughter being pregnant - so positively reflects on the character of Sarah Palin, and so effectively absorbs people's fascination, that all Barack wants is for it to go away. (For details on Bristol, scroll down to the previous post.)

"I have said before and I will repeat again: People's families are off limits," Obama said. "And people's children are especially off-limits. This shouldn't be part of our politics. It has no relevance to Gov. Palin's performance as a governor or her potential performance as a vice president. So I would strongly urge people to back off these kinds of stories. You know my mother had me when she was 18 and how a family deals with issues and teenage children, that shouldn’t be a topic of our politics."

To appear noble is the best tactic, as Barack doesn't want to add any juice to the Palin candidacy, which has already set the McCain campaign ablaze.

The McCain campaign raised more than $10 million in the two and a half days after Alaska Governor Sarah Palin was named as the vice presidential running mate, bringing the total raised in the month of August to more than $47 million, campaign officials tell ABC News.

Last month, a pretty good month for McCain, the campaign brought in $27 million.

Meanwhile, folks in Wasilla weren't surprised by the pregnancy story.

So his name is Levi. That's about the only thing that I didn't know about Bristol Palin's pregnancy. The rest of the details I picked up almost without trying, while talking about other things with townsfolk — some who know the governor and her family well, some who don't. It was, more or less, an open secret.