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--Barack Obama tried to shift perceptions about what would constitute a successful trip by saying he wouldn't be surprised if he dropped in the polls while he was overseas. His argument was that he was out of town and therefore wasn't focused on domestic issues like gas prices. Some early returns suggest he got an overall bump, while others were not as promising. That said, if voters don't give Obama a bump in the "who's best suited to be commander in chief" category, and/or in the "who's better on foreign policy" then it will have to be viewed as at least a partial failure. Wasn't that the whole point?
--Even while Obama was away, he was getting plenty of coverage in big battleground states for his foreign trip, making the front page of many of the top papers in crucial capitals across the country, which Obama's campaign made sure to share with reporters. Many of them showed the sprawling, 200,000-strong crowd Obama drew in Germany.
--Regardless of how it shakes out in the polls, even top Republican advisers now agree that Obama's has had an awfully good stretch, by contrast to John McCain. The way Obama handled himself on the trip, plus the fortunate news Obama got from Nouri al-Maliki, plus some McCain missteps and sourpuss comments toward the press, all add up to a very nice week or two for Obama.
--If there was one thing McCain did to draw some favorable coverage while Obama was away (because the supermarket/sausage restaurant didn't get him much more than mockery), it was meeting with the Dalai Lama. The meeting still took a backseat to Obama's trip, and never mind that Obama's had his own meetings with the Dalai Lama. It was hinged to another news event, the Olympics, and while President Bush has also met with and praised the Dalai Lama, it did give McCain a chance to try to show some more daylight between himself and the incumbent, given that Bush is going to the Olympics despite the turmoil over Tibet. (The other way he got major attention: two attacks, one an advertisement and one a remark, both related to foreign policy but ultimately aimed at Obama's character. Hard to say that the coverage of those developments has been very positive, although that has rarely stopped attacks from working before.)
--Although the Obama trip put a huge spotlight on foreign policy in this campaign, a remarkable number of experts are noticing how much more this election is focusing, overall, on international affairs. A historical amount, even. The San Diego Union-Tribune quotes a slew of them here. |
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