Rendezvous with Destiny

He's still ahead

This is a point well worth making:

How bad are things for Obama? Pretty bad: "He still leads Republican Sen. John McCain 51-44. But it's the same 51-44 as last time." Do you think that if Obama wins, then the day after the election all the headlines will be about how he hasn't yet really pulled away from McCain? Shouldn't the whole "our nominee is consistently behind in the polls" thing be worrying Republicans?

Celebrity

The Obama campaign responds with a tone of high-minded disappointment to John McCain's recent attacks:
For some, this line of attack has so far been fairly scattershot ("You can make Obama into Britney Spears, or John Kerry, or Malcolm X. I'm not sure you can make him into all three at the same time"). There's also an argument that a purely negative campaign diminishes McCain, making him seem cantankerous and petty. This contention was made by John Weaver, a possibly disgruntled former member of McCain's inner circle:

The strategy of driving up Obama's negatives "reduces McCain on the stage," Weaver said.

"For McCain to win in such troubled times, he needs to begin telling the American people how he intends to lead us. That McCain exists. He can inspire the country to greatness."

He added: "There is legitimate mockery of a political campaign now, and it isn't at Obama's. For McCain's sake, this tomfoolery needs to stop."

There would be room for either man to break out of this pattern, and get back to some traditional transactional politics, letting voters know what the candidate would actually do for them. Both have done this - and McCain's offshore drilling plan seems to have gone down very well - but it hasn't been the main element of their communications.

Kaine dodging, jamming

If Tim Kaine is to be Obama's running mate, we'd better get to know him. This is Kaine dodging questions during a radio interview yesterday:

Via The Stump, this is Kaine jamming on the harmonica:

I find the harmonica to be much like the recorder, in that it's hard to tell when it's being played well. Incidentally the song being playing is 'Can the Circle be Unbroken', a song that was arranged and popularised as a country and bluegrass song by the Carter Family.

Presumption

The big, overblown story of the day is this:

Obama was waxing lyrical about last week's trip to Europe, when he concluded, according to the meeting attendee, "this is the moment, as Nancy [Pelosi] noted, that the world is waiting for."

The 200,000 souls who thronged to his speech in Berlin came not just for him, he told the enthralled audience of congressional representatives. "I have become a symbol of the possibility of America returning to our best traditions," he said, according to the source.

Which sounds pretty arrogant, unless you combine it with the first half of the quote:

The Post left out the important first half of the sentence, which was something along the lines of: ‘It has become increasingly clear in my travel, the campaign, that the crowds, the enthusiasm, 200,000 people in Berlin, is not about me at all. It’s about America. I have just become a symbol …

It would have been better to say 'my campaign has', rather than 'I have', but taken in context these remarks aren't self-aggrandizing. On this same theme, Dana Millbank in the Washington Post mocks President Obama's victory tour:

As he marches toward Inauguration Day (Election Day is but a milestone on that path), Obama's biggest challenger may not be Republican John McCain but rather his own hubris

The McCain campaign has also released this advert:

(Prompting the Obama campaign to respond that "On a day when major news organizations across the country are taking Senator McCain to task for a steady stream of false, negative attacks, his campaign has launched yet another. Or, as some might say, ‘Oops! He did it again.“)

The comes back to the question, posed by 50% of my readership, of whether Obama's foreign trip will ultimately have a detrimental effect, by making him seem rather presumptuous.

The short answer to this is yes, it might well.

The longer answer... I'm not sure what he could have done differently, besides not holding the rally in Berlin. Obama was under pressure on foreign policy, and had to show that he would be capable of representing the US abroad and being taken seriously by other world leaders. The trip certainly achieved that.

I can see why the Obama campaign wanted to hold the rally; evoking the imagery of JFK's Berlin speech must have been irresistible, and there must be an appetite in the US to see American flags waving (not burning) on the streets of foreign capitals. This would only have been a bad thing if in his speech, Obama had been seen to be betraying the US in some way, but he clearly didn't. He didn't even mention the current president, criticism of whom would have met with an enthusiastic response.

Obama is now able to make a visceral argument (I can ensure that America is loved again), and a rational one; that with this level of international support, as President he could really make progress on transnational challenges like terrorism and climate change.

It also really depends whether Obama's key challenge is i) getting voters to actually imagine him as president, or ii) overcoming the impression of him being arrogant and out of touch. The Obama campaign believes that i) is the big one, no doubt applying the rationale that Obama's appearance, race, name, and background just aren't like previous presidents.

But it will be important to keep an eye on point ii). Recent polling from Gallup suggests this could be a problem:

Since the previous USA Today/Gallup poll, Obama's image has suffered to some degree, while McCain's has slightly improved. In the June 15-19 poll, 64% of Americans had a positive view of Obama, compared with 61% today. McCain's favorable rating has increased from 59% to 62%.

Do feel free to send more questions, by the way.

Veepstakes

The Washington Post reports that Obama's vice-presidential selection has pared down to four contenders; Virginia Governor Tim Kaine, Senator Joe Biden, Indiana Senator Evan Bayh, and Kansas governor Kathleen Sebelius.

Of these, Kaine seems to be generating the most buzz. He reinforces a lot of Obama's attributes; he's not a Washington insider, he's fairly bipartisan, and he's comfortable talking about faith. He also shores up one weakness (in that Kaine has executive experience as a mayor and governor). There's also plenty of evidence that Kaine and Obama like each other. Drawbacks? He's also a fairly young guy, with no national-level experience. He doesn't appear to be super-charismatic, and doesn't have a particular constituency that really backs him.

I can't see an argument for Evan Bayh, who comes across as being fairly dull, and probably wouldn't deliver Indiana in the general election. I guess one argument would be that this would be a sop to Clinton fans (Bayh was a serious Clinton-backer), and Bayh is clearly an effective politician. It would be hard for Obama to spin this as anything other than a safe, unambitious pick.

Joe Biden is the wildcard. He's been in Washington since the Civil War, and has aeons of foreign policy experience, which undercuts Obama's outsider appeal, and makes him look exceptionally inexperienced. Biden didn't do very well in the Democratic primary, is famously long-winded, and looks posh.

All that said, I think Obama might actually pick him. He utterly satisfies the first rule of picking a VP ('because I could die'), and would demonstrate Obama's disregard for appearence, instead emphasizing the importance of picking the most effective partner in government.

Kathleen Sebelius is the most risky choice. It's an exotic ticket, and risks alienating Clinton supporters (for reasons that are fairly sexist).

The Troops

Desperate to take the gloss off Obama's successful week, John McCain released this ad hitting Obama for cancelling a visit to injured US troops in Germany:

It's part of an escalation of McCain's rhetoric on foreign policy, and probably serves to indicate how worried he is that Obama is eroding his advantage in this area. The charge itself is also largely false:

NBC’s Andrea Mitchell reports that there was never a plan for Obama to take the press to Landstuhl, despite the claim by McCain folks and others. The plan was to go with his military aide, retired General Scott Gration. The Pentagon said Gration was off-limits because he had joined the campaign -- violating rules that it not be a political stop.

Obama had gone to see wounded troops in Iraq earlier in the week, without even confirming he'd been there. No press, no pictures. He has done the same when he goes to Walter Reed -- never any press.

It's unworthy of McCain, frankly.

Back with you

I’m back.

Obama has had the most fantastically successful couple of weeks. His trip to the Middle East and Europe saw him being feted by world leaders, draw a crowd of 200,000 in Berlin, sinking a three-pointer, and lifting 32 kilo dumbbells (prompting Jon Stewart to remark that Obama had a brief detour during his time in Israel, to visit the manger in Bethlehem where he was born).

Most significantly, Iraqi PM Nouri al-Maliki endorsed Obama’s 16 month Iraq withdrawal timetable. This seems to have handed Obama a victory in one of the most controversial election issues. Even McCain then began using similar language, having previously opposed any timetable for withdrawal.

Yet despite having these substantial advantages, the basic structure of the race has not altered in the last four weeks. Obama has a narrow lead over McCain, and is only sporadically polling above 50%. Pollster’s trend has Obama at 44.7% and McCain at 41.5%, though using state polls to project the Electoral College result provides more encouragement for Obama.

There’s a school of though that whilst McCain’s campaign is being openly derided by some in the media, some of his policies (particularly encouraging offshore oil exploration) are connecting with voters. The other part of this argument is that Obama is still failing to connect with the working-class voters that he had trouble picking up in the primaries.

I’d personally give more weight to the theory that the fairly static nature of the polls reflects the fact that we’re now in a lull before the vast majority of voters actually start paying close attention. Michael Tomasky argues that Obama’s trip should be seen in this light, paying dividends further on when voters really tune in.