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Time will tell how Obama trip plays among voters

THE WASHINGTON POST

July 27, 2008

LONDON - By almost every measure, Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama's overseas tour 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 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, strategists at home measured the political fallout for the senator from Illinois and presumptive Republican nominee John McCain on an almost hourly basis. Their consensus was the week turned into a near-rout for Obama.

John Weaver, once McCain's top political strategist, said his old boss made a mistake 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 forces when he went there.

"McCain lost the week badly, let's be honest," Weaver said. "John [McCain] is still in striking distance, thanks to his own character, biography and memories of the McCain of previous election cycles. But he cannot afford another week like this one."

Alex Castellanos, another GOP strategist, agreed Obama had acquitted himself well overseas. But he sounded a cautionary note. Obama, unlike McCain, he said, remains a work in progress. "John McCain is complete. Barack Obama is completing himself. The question is, will he finish that job by November?"

Obama himself foresees no quick payoff from the trip, suggesting his poll numbers might dip in coming days. "We have been out of the country for a week. People are worried about gas prices and home foreclosures."

McCain advisers complained much of the week about what they labeled "a premature victory lap." McCain made a joke of it in his weekly radio address yesterday. "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. Maybe you are, too."

But Obama sought to turn that back on his critics. He said McCain had earlier been "telling me I was supposed to take this trip. He suggested it and thought it was a good idea."