With Senator Barack Obama back in the United States after his multi-nation trip overseas, assessments of the time that he spent visiting war zones, making speeches and meeting with heads of state continue to pour in.
As he flew home, The Times’s Jeff Zeleny asked Mr. Obama directly for his take on how he thought the trip went and how it would be perceived at home:
“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 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.”
The Washington Post’s Dan Balz asks: “Will a week of one-on-one meetings with foreign officials, cheering crowds, favorable and voluminous media 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?”
Politico’s Carrie Budoff Brown offers her take, writing that Mr. Obama “emerged almost incident-free” from the week and lists a number of developments from the Obama road show that might have a lasting impact.
And with Mr. Obama back on American soil, the Los Angeles Time’s Doyle McManus and Michael Finnegan look at what’s ahead on the campaign trail for the presumptive Democratic nominee:
Obama aides said they intend to turn their campaign’s focus back toward the domestic economy beginning Monday. On the plane trip back to the U.S., the candidate told reporters that he is planning a meeting that day that will include former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker and investor Warren Buffett.
Meanwhile, the McCain campaign rolled out a new television ad yesterday focusing on Senator Obama’s canceled visits with wounded American troops in Germany.
The Washington Post’s Michael D. Shear and Paul Kane report that the McCain campaign and G.O.P. members of congress “think they have found their best political issue of the 2008 campaign”: support for increasing domestic oil production, and in particular, offshore drilling.
The Times’s Jim Rutenberg writes about how black radio hosts are providing a counter-balance to conservative voices during the election season:
Since Mr. Limbaugh first flexed his tonsils two decades ago, Democrats have publicly worried about their lack of an answer to him and his imitators, who have proven so adept at motivating conservative Republicans to go to the polls, especially for President Bush.Now it is Mr. Obama, the presumptive Democratic nominee, who has a harmonious chorus of broadcast supporters addressing a vital part of his coalition, feeding and reflecting the excitement blacks have for his candidacy in general. Mr. Obama is getting support from white liberal talk radio hosts as well, but the backing he is getting from black radio hosts could be especially helpful to his campaign’s efforts to increase black turnout and raise historically low voter registration enough to change the math of presidential elections in battlegrounds and traditionally Republican states like this one.
Since Mr. Limbaugh first flexed his tonsils two decades ago, Democrats have publicly worried about their lack of an answer to him and his imitators, who have proven so adept at motivating conservative Republicans to go to the polls, especially for President Bush.
Now it is Mr. Obama, the presumptive Democratic nominee, who has a harmonious chorus of broadcast supporters addressing a vital part of his coalition, feeding and reflecting the excitement blacks have for his candidacy in general. Mr. Obama is getting support from white liberal talk radio hosts as well, but the backing he is getting from black radio hosts could be especially helpful to his campaign’s efforts to increase black turnout and raise historically low voter registration enough to change the math of presidential elections in battlegrounds and traditionally Republican states like this one.
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