It’s hard to imagine how Barack Obama’s week-long international excursion could have gone much better. But as Obama heads home, there are a handful of questions at the fore: Did the trip help? Do voters care? Will the effects of the trip linger?
The LA Times’ report notes that Obama “conquered” the Middle East and Europe, but he returns “to face a more challenging battleground: middle America.” The WaPo report struck a similar note, describing the excursion as “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.”
Obama seems all too aware of the political considerations.
“In terms of raw politics, in the short-term there’s just as much downside as upside to a trip like this, even when it’s well executed,” Mr. Obama said in an interview as he flew here from Paris on the final leg of his trip. “People at home are worried about gas prices, they’re worried about mortgage foreclosures — and for a week they’re seeing me traipse around the world? It’s easy to paint that as somehow being removed from people’s day-to-day problems.”
Leaning forward in his chair aboard a campaign plane freshly emblazoned with his logo, he added, “We thought it was worth the risk.”
In many ways, as his journey ended here on Saturday, the answer to that question may prove crucial in gauging what effect, if any, his ambitious overseas trip will have in the final months of the presidential race on the people who will decide the election. […]
The quandary for Mr. Obama is that while his trip clearly presented an opportunity for him — even many Republicans conceded that he seized it masterfully with eight days of appearances in troubled lands, meetings with foreign leaders and visits to soldiers — it also fueled the questions his critics have used to try to undercut him: whether he is arrogant and taking his election for granted.
There is simply no reason in the world to think that’s true. None. “We don’t buy our own hype,” Obama told the NYT. “We’re always looking around the corner.”
“We’re in a very tight race, despite having a week of great press and John McCain having had a week of not-so-great press,” Mr. Obama said in the interview. “If that doesn’t keep you on your toes, I don’t know what will.” […]
Even though Mr. Obama’s campaign intends to shelve his experiences abroad for now — the urgent matter at hand this week are trips to Iowa and Missouri, Florida and Texas — the worldly images are precisely what Mr. Obama hopes voters will begin internalizing in the coming months.
“Even if the economy ends up being the dominant issue in the election,” he said, “when people go to the polling place in November, for them to have in the back of their mind, all right, here’s what it looks like for Obama to be in discussions with other heads of state.” […]
Asked on Saturday about his political fortunes, he said, “I wouldn’t even be surprised if in some polls we saw a little bit of a dip because we’ve been out of the country for a week.”
Obama added, “How do I avoid looking presumptuous?”
I’ve been pondering the same thing. The trip was going to face a negative spin, no matter what. If he speaks too much, he’s arrogant; if he speaks too little, he’s reclusive. If he visits with too many troops, he’s exploitative; too few and he’s unpatriotic. If he’s gone too long, he’s shirking Americans; if he’s not gone long enough, he’s disinterested in foreign affairs. If the trip is deemed a success, he’s being presumptuous; if it’s a failure, he’s failed a presidential test.
Oddly enough, when McCain visited multiple foreign countries on multiple continents earlier in the summer, there was no such pressure.
Regardless, it’s hard to see the week as anything but a sterling success, at least in the short term. As for the long term, I think Obama’s remarks to the NYT sound about right: if there public doubts about Obama being able to lead on the global stage, this week should help ease those fears moving forward.