Obama saw the sights of Europe, Middle East, but will he get the U.S. votes?

Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama appears to have made it through a foreign tour of the Middle East and Europe without doing or saying anything so blatantly stupid that he would forevermore have been mocked (remember Michael Dukakis riding around in a tank?)

So the perception of how Obama did during his visits to hot spots in Iran and Afghanistan, along with the touristy spots in France and Germany, depends largely on how one viewed Obama before he went.

PEOPLE WHO ARE inclined to support Obama are going to talk up how he gained first-hand experience in the ways of the world, and now has a better understanding of international affairs that will make him a better president.

Those individuals who are ABO backers (Anybody But Obama) are going to trash the trip as a trivial excuse to take a mid-campaign vacation. Many of those who are inclined to back a Republican for president are of an ideological leaning that makes them distrust other nations’ governments, and some people have spouted out talk that they wish Obama would focus his attention on the U.S., rather than other countries.

The truth lies somewhere between these two extremes.

The simple fact is that if a candidate seeks the political position known informally as Leader of the Free World, he had better have some interest in the happenings of the world. One can make a legitimate argument that George W. Bush’s shortcomings as president were due to a lack of interest in anything related to the job – except when the little kids came to the White House to play t-ball games on the presidential lawn.

I PERSONALLY DON’T think Obama got to see the true circumstances involved in Iran or Iraq or anywhere else in the Middle East. He got the guided tour with minders who made sure to take him to specific sites and see only certain things.

But it put him in a position where he had to immerse himself in foreign affairs, almost like he was cramming for an exam (as if four years as president could be compared to taking a test). I’m sure the Ivy League student in Obama (or the University of Chicago academic) felt completely comfortable under such circumstances.

It also gave him a chance to appear as though he was internationally oriented to those few people in this country who truly have not yet made up their minds about who to support come the Nov. 4 elections.

If anything, the Middle East portion of the trip was most important for Obama. Yet the public will likely remember the European segments much more.

FROM WATCHING THE man who got model/actress Carla Bruni to say “yes” to his marriage proposal suddenly fawn all over Obama when the junior senator from Illinois met with the president of France, to seeing the hundreds of thousands of German citizens cram the streets of Berlin to hear Barack speak, it gave the impression of increased respect for our country – if only Obama is able to win the general election.

Such respect has definitely been lacking in this decade, as all too many see the Bush years as those of an international bully running amok. Even though McCain is not George Bush by any definition, too many people around the world see him as tainted by the incumbent president.

It should be no surprise that Gallup Organization surveys released earlier this week showed at least 60 percent of European people of English, French and German nationalities all felt their country’s interests would gain if Obama defeats Republican John McCain.

Of course, some will argue that such sentiment is outweighed by the percentage of U.S. citizens who will distrust Obama because the “foreigners” like him. Others will note that the “foreigners” do not vote in U.S. elections, so we should not care what they think.

BUT THERE IS some evidence that what little bit of support Obama will lose because of his foreign interest will be outweighed by those who see it positively.

On Friday, Gallup officials came out with their latest tracking poll, showing Obama with a 6-percent lead over McCain. At 47 percent support for Barack compared to 41 percent for McCain, it is significantly larger than the 3- or 2-percent leads that Obama usually has over McCain.

Did the sight of Obama, with allusions to Ronald Reagan’s address at the Brandenburg Gate, suddenly sway a number of undecideds into the Obama camp?

The trick will be to see the polls of early next week to figure out how much of that increase he holds onto. The simple fact is that tracking polls show how we the potential electorate have a sheep-like mentality. We will follow the whim of the day.

WHEN THE REPUBLICANS have their nominating convention in St. Paul, Minn., McCain’s name is going to be in the news so often that he will gain the support of people who figure he must be worth voting for, if he’s getting covered. He may very well tie Obama in the polls.

Likewise, when Obama gives that speech at Invesco Field in Denver accepting the Democratic presidential nomination, his rhetoric likely will push his favorable ratings so high that the polls with have him with such a huge lead that people will wonder how McCain could ever have been delusional enough to think he could defeat Barack.

In short, winning an election is about hanging on to the support of the few people in our country who sincerely are willing to give both candidates a chance. One Gallup poll from earlier this week showed that only about one of every 16 voters seriously is willing to consider Obama or McCain – the others have either already made up their minds for one, the other, or feel disgust for both.

If Obama can keep the positive aura going that he has helped generate this week, then he has gone a long way toward becoming this nation’s first biracial president.

BUT THE TRIP was successful in one other way. It reduced the McCain campaign to the status of Second Story in the news cycle for over a week.

John McCain was reduced to trying to feed off the Obama attention by staging trivial stunts such as eating wienerschnitzel in Columbus, Ohio, and airing negative Obama radio ads in various rural U.S. towns that happen to be named Berlin.

His public comments during the week came off as petty rants, jealous that everybody was paying attention to the opponent and not him. It reinforced the notion that the Obama campaign is setting the agenda of the 2008 presidential election and that McCain is merely a follower.

Unless Obama literally tumbles down the steps of his airplane when arriving Sunday in Chicago (a la Chevy Chase’s impersonations of former President Gerald R. Ford) to speak to the UNITY convention of minority news media officials, John McCain is going to have to come up with something drastic to make up for the public perception ground he lost this week.

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EDITOR’S NOTES: Barack Obama doesn’t seem to have hurt his campaign by visiting the Middle East (http://www.gallup.com/poll/109105/Gallup-Daily-Obama-There-Europe-Effect.aspx) and Europe, where locals (http://www.gallup.com/poll/109018/Britons-French-Germans-Solidly-Back-Obama.aspx) are in love with his persona. What do U.S. voters think?

Combining French glamour with tough talk on Iran (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/25/AR2008072501970.html?hpid=topnews), Obama is trying to appear like a knowledgable man of the world in speaking against the concept of Iran having access to nuclear weapons.