Barack Obama had planned an overseas trip as part of his presidential campaign for quite a while, but plans were delayed when the Democratic nominating fight took a little longer than expected. Now, there’s a window between the 4th of July, the Olympics, and the start of the conventions, and Obama is ready to head abroad.
Time’s Karen Tumulty said, “[I]t’s clear that Barack Obama’s upcoming trip to the Middle East and Europe is an audition on the world stage.” That strikes me as largely fair. If Obama is perceived as having a successful foreign trip, where he’s well received by foreign audiences, it will bolster his presidential stature, lend him the credibility that comes alongside international respect, and help voters perceive him as the next leader of the free world.
One thing seems certain, though: foreign audiences are anxious to see him.
From prime ministers to college students, Europeans want to cloak Barack Obama in a warm embrace when he arrives on the continent next week. But they’re also aware that anything that looks or smells like elitist Old Europe could hurt the Democratic contender with voters back home.
Obama has yet to finalize his itinerary for Europe. However, he is already set to skip Brussels, the capital of the modern united continent, for the traditional symbols of economic and military power: London, Paris and Berlin.
All those European capitals’ leaders have expressed a willingness to adapt their schedules to see the American politician whose sky-high approval ratings in their countries are at least as good as their own. Polls reveal that if they could vote in the United States, between 53% and 72% of the British, French and German public would pull the lever for Obama. […]
“We’re not trying to give advice to Americans,” said Samuel Solvit, 22, a French business student who started an Obama support committee in Paris that counts prominent politicians among its 3,000 members. “We just wanted to show that we admire Sen. Obama because he can renew politics in America — and in the world.”
London’s Observer recently ran an editorial — headlined, “The world is waiting to love America again” — predicting, “Should he win in November, Obama’s priorities will be domestic ones but he also has a formidable opportunity to recast America’s relationship with the world. It is this relationship which took such a battering during the Bush presidency as anti-Americanism took root across the globe.”
Enthusiasm for Obama is so strong abroad, officials from some countries — including Ireland and Lebanon — complained publicly when they learned that Obama would not visit their countries during his overseas trip.
What’s more, media interest in Obama’s journey is intense enough that some 200 journalists have asked to accompany Obama, and lured by an offer of interviews, “Brian Williams, Charlie Gibson and Katie Couric will make the overseas trek, meaning that the NBC, ABC and CBS evening newscasts will originate from stops along the route and undoubtedly give it big play.”
McCain has taken recent foreign trips, to far less fanfare, and his campaign is less than pleased about the excitement surrounding Obama’s journey.
The extraordinary coverage of Obama’s trip reflects how the candidate remains an object of fascination in the news media, a built-in feature of being the first African-American presidential nominee for a major political party and a relative newcomer to the national stage.
But the coverage also feeds into concerns in McCain’s campaign, and among Republicans in general, that the media is imbalanced in their coverage of the candidates, just as aides to Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton felt during the primary season.
“It is unproductive to spend it worrying about the way Obama is covered,” said Jill Hazelbaker, a spokeswoman for McCain. “That being said, it certainly hasn’t escaped us that the three network newscasts will originate from stops on Obama’s trip next week.”
News executives say they generally devote the same resources to the candidates. But they do not dispute that Obama has received more coverage this year, not only because of the historic nature of his campaign and his newness to the political scene relative to McCain, but also because of the protracted nature of his primary battle with Clinton, which was at a peak when McCain last went to Iraq.
In fairness, the McCain campaign’s argument is not unreasonable. His recent trips abroad were not considered especially newsworthy, and did not generate considerable media attention. In fact, when it came to traveling to Latin America in early July, no one was even sure why he was making the trip in the first place.
But it’s worth remembering that McCain inadvertently helped create this dynamic. For several weeks, McCain, his surrogates, and the RNC went to great lengths to talk about Obama’s lack of foreign travel, effectively making this an important campaign issue. Now that Obama is going abroad, it’s a little late for the same Republican complainers to be disappointed that their own story is being taken seriously.
For that matter, anyone who seriously wants to make the case that the media is somehow biased against John McCain is probably someone who isn’t paying attention to current events.
But I would concede there’s an underlying aspect that’s hard to deny. There’s simply more excitement surrounding Obama’s campaign. That may not be fair, and that may hurt the McCain campaign’s feelings, but that’s the reality. Around the world, people want to see, hear, and learn more about Obama. And the media wants to be there to capture it.
Are imaginations captivated by John McCain? Not so much.