Campaign digest | Obama elaborates on arugula sound bite

INDEPENDENCE, Iowa — Most presidential candidates do their best to sweep real or alleged gaffes under the rug. Not Barack Obama.

On Friday in Independence, Iowa, the senator from Illinois addressed criticism he received after he told an Iowa television station that he no longer wears an American-flag pin on his suit lapel because it "became a substitute for, I think, true patriotism, which is speaking out on issues that are of importance to our national security."

Obama elaborated on his comments, saying he had put aside the flag pin, which he started wearing after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, because he started seeing others in Washington wearing the pins but voting against spending for veterans' health care and soldiers' disability payments.

After lapel pins, Obama took up the arugula matter. In July at a farm in Adel, Iowa, Obama responded to farmers' concerns about falling crop prices by saying that U.S. farm policy should focus more on supporting the production of specialty foods that are in increasing demand. "Anybody gone into Whole Foods lately and see what they charge for arugula?" he said, to some ridicule in the national media.

In Independence, Obama was talking again about the need for diversifying crops, and he recounted the criticism he'd received, citing it as proof of the news media's pettiness. "They said: 'Oh, Obama's talking about arugula in Iowa. People in Iowa don't know what arugula is,' " he said, to laughter.

"People in Iowa know what arugula is. They may not eat it, but they know what it is."

Thompson would

trim benefits' growth

WASHINGTON — Former Sen. Fred Thompson promised fiscal conservatives Friday that he'd trim the cost of government by slowing the growth of Social Security benefits.

The Republican presidential candidate said that changing the formula that adjusts Social Security benefits to keep pace with the cost of living would keep the program solvent over the long term.

While he wasn't specific, numerous studies have concluded the only way such a plan could work is if it slashes future Social Security benefits by one-fourth to one-half below what's promised under current law.

"We could have the same level of Social Security benefits, for example, and adjust the cost-of-living increases to cover inflation," Thompson told the Americans for Prosperity Foundation convention, and that "would solve the problem for probably 75 years."

Thompson told The Des Moines Register editorial board last week that he supports indexing the growth of Social Security benefits to goods rather than to wages. Wages tends to increase at a higher rate than do the prices of goods.

Seattle Times news services