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America's Candidates In Chief

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By MARK LEIBOVICH

The New York Times

Published: August 17, 2008

WASHINGTON - Sen. Barack Obama has stood before a lectern adorned with a faux presidential seal.

Sen. John McCain recently began giving a radio address every Saturday.

Obama's campaign plane has been dubbed "O-Force One." ("Obama-'08/President" is stitched into the captain's chair.)

McCain gave a speech in Columbus in May hypothetically looking back on his first term in office.

It is unclear when the two presidential candidates will host their first state dinners, spend their first weekends at Camp David or welcome this year's NBA champions, the Boston Celtics, to the Rose Garden.

Oh, wait, neither of these guys has been elected yet.

It can be easy to overlook this detail given that McCain of Arizona, the presumptive Republican nominee, and Obama of Illinois, his Democratic counterpart, have been assuming the trappings and behaviors of already-elected presidents. Candidates always strive to project an image consistent with the office they are seeking.

But in McCain versus Obama - the first general election matchup in 56 years that will not include a sitting president or vice president - two senators with minimal executive experience seem to be falling all over themselves to playact the role of president.

Both have been engaged in "dueling efforts to hew a faux reality of occupying an office that they haven't yet won," said Joshua King, a veteran of political stagecraft who served as director of production in the Clinton White House. "They're relatively free to fabricate their own version of officialdom."

Both McCain and Obama have embarked on high-profile trips abroad, a practice unheard of in recent decades by nonincumbent presidential nominees or nominees-to-be. This month, Obama traveled to Europe and the Middle East, while McCain visited Latin America. (He took his own trip to Europe and the Middle East in March.)

Creating An Image

The journeys provided a roving platform for the candidates to mimic the "official" conventions of a commander in chief. Obama set forth on his European and Middle Eastern tour accompanied by 12 foreign policy advisers and a virtual army of men wearing earpieces that approached presidential levels. He was ferried through the streets of Amman, Jordan, in a 20-car motorcade.

While the McCain entourage pales compared to that of his rival - as does his Boeing 737 next to Obama's 757 - his trips still convey an unmistakably presidential vibe.

In Colombia, he held a news conference with President Alvaro Uribe that followed the same format as joint presidential appearances, a couple or so questions from each side.

On all trips, McCain's campaign distributes mini-schedule booklets that are nearly identical to those used in the White House - same style, same typeface, same size.

"You obviously always want your candidate to look presidential while not acting too presidential," said Ed Rollins, a longtime Republican strategist. In other words, Rollins said, a candidate walks a fine line between projecting a statesmanlike image while not seeming presumptuous.

This challenge was particularly acute for Obama on his five-country tour of Europe and the Middle East. He enjoyed rarefied perches and backdrops typically reserved for traveling presidents: being photographed in front of 10 Downing Street in London, surveying Iraq from the air with Gen. David H. Petraeus and addressing hordes of Berliners while looking toward the Brandenburg Gate.

Obama's trip was mostly judged a success - he made no embarrassing missteps - which was particularly important to his candidacy because polls have shown that he has the greater burden in persuading voters that he is ready for the presidency. He needs "to plant in people's minds the visual image of him sitting in the White House," said Mike McCurry, who was a spokesman for former President Clinton.

Obama has a few built-in advantages: He is adept at reading speeches from a teleprompter, as presidents tend to be (and McCain is not). He also received Secret Service protection early in his campaign, which has lent appreciably to his "Kind of a Big Deal" aura.

Delicate Balance

But Obama has been criticized for overreaching at times. In June, his campaign displayed a facsimile of the presidential seal. The Obama version included an "O" covering the body of the eagle and the Latin phrase "Vero Possumus" in place of the standard "E Pluribus Unum." ("Vero Possumus" roughly translates to the Obama campaign slogan, "Yes, we can.")

The seal was instantly derided as an affectation; three days later, it was retired. McCain joined in the ridicule July 12 - in his first "weekly radio address."

At times on his overseas trip, Obama and his campaign teetered on the presidential-presumptuous line.

It did not go un-snickered-upon within the McCain campaign, for instance, when Obama said that he wanted to acquaint himself with foreign leaders "who I expect to be dealing with over the next eight to 10 years." Not only did Obama seem to be assuming victory in November but also re-election in 2012 and, for good measure, the option to extend a second term by two years.

McCain's surrogates hit the overconfidence note repeatedly recently. Tucker Bounds, a spokesman for McCain, mocked Obama's speech to Germans as "a premature victory lap in the heart of Berlin." But the press corps traveling with Obama did not react well last week when a campaign aide tried to invoke White House custom by declaring a briefing by a foreign policy adviser to be "on background" - meaning he could not be identified. A reporter was compelled to point out that Obama "is not president of the United States."

The candidate was more vigilant about not prematurely counting his chickens.

Aboard O-Force One on his return, Obama was asked whether he had studied the famous speeches Ronald Reagan and John F. Kennedy had given in Berlin. "You know, they were presidents," Obama said. "I am a citizen."

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