Obama: Adoration abroad, backlash at home?

ANALYSIS: A journey to help Obama appear presidential could also make him look too far removed from the problems of ordinary Americans.

By JEFF ZELENY, New York Times

Last update: July 26, 2008 - 9:10 PM

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LONDON - He stood in the shadow of the Temple of Hercules, held forth at the Elysée Palace and convened a one-man news conference here on Saturday outside No. 10 Downing St., all with a simple aim: to make a one-term senator from Illinois look presidential to voters back home in America.

But along the way to appearing presidential, did Sen. Barack Obama cross a political line -- as he and his advisers quietly feared, and some Republicans hoped -- by coming across as too presumptuous?

"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," 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.

This is one area where Republicans, who were generally bereft about the day-by-day dispatches of Obama's international trip, see an opportunity: While the country's mood may favor Democrats, there has been no detectable flurry of swing voters rushing to Obama.

The quandary for 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.

"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," Sen. John McCain said in a radio address on Saturday. "Maybe you are, too."

Obama offered this assessment: "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. If that doesn't keep you on your toes, I don't know what will."

Still, the challenge remained for Obama of trying to balance the positives and negatives that come with adoring comments from leaders like President Nicolas Sarkozy of France, who declared: "Good luck to Barack Obama. If he is chosen, then France will be delighted."

In nearly every city on his eight-day trip, Obama awoke to find a newspaper with his photograph -- and often several -- on the cover. Yet by the time he reached the end of his travels here on Saturday, a moment of political reality set in with a headline in the Times of London that stated, "Obama's capital tour loses him ground back home."

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."

With the Normandy coast coming into view through the windows of Obama's campaign plane as he left France, he smirked when asked to respond to criticism that he was on the cusp of measuring the White House drapes. Turning to an aide, he said, "Have you been measuring the drapes?"

"We don't buy our own hype," Obama said. "We're always looking around the corner."

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