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Obama's Trip Deemed Success; Long-term Effects Uncertain
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Published: July 27, 2008
LONDON - By almost every measure, Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama's overseas tour that concluded here Saturday was a clear success, with meticulously planned and deftly executed events designed to beam back images to the United States of a politician comfortable on the world stage.
What isn't measurable is whether it worked. Will a week of one-on-one meetings with foreign officials, cheering crowds, favorable and voluminous press coverage on both sides of the Atlantic and plain good fortune on the debate over getting out of Iraq overcome the doubts he faces at home about his readiness to be president? And if it doesn't, what will?
As Obama moved from Iraq and Afghanistan to Jordan and Israel and then to three European capitals before flying back to Chicago on Saturday night, strategists back home measured the political fallout for the senator from Illinois and presumptive Republican nominee Arizona Sen. John McCain on an almost hourly basis. Their consensus was that the week turned into a near-rout for Obama.
John Weaver, who once was McCain's top political strategist, said his old boss made a big mistake by virtually daring Obama to go to Iraq and Afghanistan, only to see Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki generally embrace the Democrat's plan for withdrawing combat forces when he went there.
Alex Castellanos, another Republican strategist, agreed that Obama had acquitted himself well overseas. "'Barack goes global' is working," he noted. But he sounded a cautionary note, nonetheless. Obama, unlike McCain, he said, remains a work in progress who is still trying to answer the question: "Who is this guy?"
Obama himself foresees no quick payoff from his foreign trip.
"The value to me of this trip is hopefully it give voters a sense that I can in fact - and do - operate effectively on the international stage," he said.
McCain advisers complained through much of the week about what they labeled "a premature victory lap," and McCain made a joke of it.
"With all the breathless coverage from abroad, and with Senator Obama now addressing his speeches to 'the people of the world,' I'm starting to feel a little left out," he said in a radio address on Saturday. "Maybe you are, too."
At his closing news conference in London, Obama pushed back against suggestions that there was something inappropriate about his week abroad.
"It is hard for me to understand Senator McCain's argument," he said. "He has given speeches in Canada, in Colombia, Mexico, he made visits. And so it doesn't strike me that we have done anything different than the McCain campaign has done."
IN HIS WORDS
•Barack Obama brushed aside Republican criticism of his overseas trip on Saturday and said both President Bush and Sen. John McCain were moving his way on the key issues of Iraq and Afghanistan.
Hours before flying home, Obama also suggested his poll numbers might dip in the coming days, adding: "We have been out of the country for a week. People are worried about gas prices and home foreclosures."
•The senator also said he had canceled a planned trip to visit wounded members of the armed forces in Germany after officials told him a retired two-star general who is an adviser was considered campaign staff and "it would therefore be perceived as political because he had endorsed my candidacy but wasn't on the Senate staff."
The Associated Press
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