Sauerkraut, anyone? Today, more than 200,000 Germans----nearly triple the size of his largest U.S. crowd to date--gathered between Berlin's Brandenburg Gate and Siegessäule to hear Barack Obama speak. Meanwhile, John McCain was 4,339 miles away at Schmidt's Sausage Haus in Columbus, Ohio, where he greeted a handful of diners and downed some bratwurst with his pal Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina.

So who had the better afternoon?

The answer's not as obvious as the images--or the gushing cable coverage--might imply. To see why, it's helpful to divide Obama's actual audience--not the Teutons in attendance, but his countrymen back home--into three psychographic groups. The first two have already decided whom they're voting for. On the right, there are those who see Obama's unprecedented overseas adventure as unforgivably presumptuous--part of a pattern extending from last month's faux-presidential seal to the report today that he's directed his aides to begin planning for his White House transition. For them, the centerpiece of Obama's Berlin speech--"tonight, I speak to you... as a fellow citizen of the world"--will sound "a little too post-nationalist," or, put another way, not sufficiently "American." On the left, meanwhile, there are the folks who consider Obama's Kenya-to-Kansas persona the perfect antidote to President Bush's patented brand of "cowboy diplomacy." For these globally conscious voters, watching the Democratic nominee's Berlin rally--with its sea of adoring foreigners holding hundreds of American flags--was like glimpsing planet earth's utopian future. The first group--which has shrunk since John Kerry was declared "too French" in 2004--is voting for McCain; the second--which has grown--is voting for Obama. Berlin merely reinforced these preferences.

The real political target of the senator's speech--which was appropriately eloquent and appropriately safe--was somewhere in between. Today, 75 percent of U.S. citizens believe that Bush's foreign policy is to blame for anti-American sentiment overseas, and 70 percent disapprove of his performance as president; only 46 percent, on average, support Obama. In other words, 25 to 30 percent of the electorate is disgusted with Bush--especially on international affairs--yet still not sold on the Democratic nominee. That's group number three. In the new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll, 55 percent of voters said Obama would be the riskier choice for president, and a mere 25 percent said he'd make a better commander in chief. These people agree that Obama would help restore America's reputation abroad. But they're still not sure he's ready for office. The point of Obama's globetrotting performance this week, then, was to lower his risk factor and raise his commander-in-chief cred by giving these swing voters a chance to picture him as POTUS. I'm ready to meet with the Merkels and Malikis and restore our international reputation, he's saying. You know how you can tell? I'm already doing it. Figure out how many anti-Bush Obama skeptics were swayed by the senator's seven days of exhaustively choreographed photo-ops--at the Western Wall, with Maliki, in Gen. Petraeus's chopper--and you'll know how successful his tour really was. Given their skepticism, I can't imagine the number is earth-shattering. That's not to say the trip wasn't a worthwhile experience for Obama and an inspiring vision for many Americans. It undoubtedly was. It's just that the domestic political benefits probably aren't as large as Chris Matthews and Co. are making them out to be.

In fact, there's reason to believe that it's McCain, not Obama, who's made up the most ground in recent days--especially in key swing states. According to the latest American Research Group polls, Obama now trails by two points in Florida after having led by five, and his New Hampshire lead has plunged from 12 points to two. Rasmussen, meanwhile, shows the Illinois senator down by 10 in Ohio--a nine point drop from mid-June--and Quinnipiac finds McCain gaining 15 in Minnesota, two in Michigan and seven in Colorado. All of which underscores the central reality of the race: Obama is ahead--but just barely. Pollster.com's national polling average gives him a two-point lead; RealClear Politics pegs it at four.

So the fact remains. McCain may be "pretty obviously doomed this year," as Kevin Drum recently opined, and you may not, in the words of my NEWSWEEK colleague Howard Fineman, be able to "make up how bad things are going" for him. Furthermore, "Democrats [may] enjoy an average lead of 11.6 percent in generic Congress polls; "the Republican administration [may be] wildly unpopular"; and "the economy [may be] in a tailspin." But McCain is still within striking distance. According to the New Republic's John Judis, that's because Obama "remains the 'mysterious stranger' rather than the 'American Adam' to too many voters"-- that is, voters "who are put off rather than attracted by his race and exotic background," or are simply uncomfortable with his relatively short resume. What's more, Obama's recent efforts to prove his foreign-policy chops, while understandable, may also be somewhat counterproductive. As Stephen Medvic writes, "by doing so, he is priming voters to think about the very issues on which they prefer John McCain. Indeed, his trip overseas was intended to portray him in a positive light on the world stage. It has certainly done that... [But] foreign policy isn't likely to drive many voting decisions in the fall (barring a major international event). As a result, Obama's best bet is to return home as soon as possible and start priming voters on the issue area he can dominate--the economy." In the end, that's why Obama's trip to Berlin, Germany may not matter as much as his stops in places like Berlin, N.H., Berlin, Penn. and Berlin, Wisc.--despite what you're seeing on the tube.

By the way, we hear the brat at Schmidt's is wunderbar. 

Related Photo Gallery: Obama, With the World Watching

Matt Sayles / AP

When it comes to "volcanic" tempers--and we mean that literally--John McCain is apparently no match for Steve Schmidt, his new campaign guru. McCain yells. McCain curses. McCain occasionally gets in scuffles. But McCain, unlike Schmidt, does not (ahem) lose bodily fluids. According to a lengthy profile published in yesterday's Wall Street Journal, when Schmidt--nicknamed "Bullet" for his burly build and bald pate--gets really angry, his nose begins to bleed. (Schmidt denies the diagnosis.) "The nostrils would flare, he would get very red-faced... and you would just want to quit," a colleague from President Bush's 2004 war room told the paper. "You basically wanted to crash a chair over his head." Those who have worked with Schmidt before say that Team McCain "should steel itself," the Journal reports. Investing in Kleenex might be wise as well.

On the presidential campaign trail, temper tantrums are nothing new. The toxic cocktail of long hours, grueling travel, massive egos and constant public scrutiny is enough to send even the calmest operative over the edge on occasion. But McCain's recent decision to substitute the snappish Schmidt for campaign manager Rick Davis--the formal, even-keeled moneyman who engineered his miraculous primary-season comeback--raises an interesting question. What's the relationship between rage and electoral results--if any? Over the past three decades, an army of presidential Svengali's have made anger a defining feature of their professional personae, wielding it, like Schmidt, as a tool of management. Others, of course, haven't. A quick look at the history books reveals that the latter group may have been more successful in steering their bosses to victory.

Take John Weaver, for example. A lanky, brooding, volatile Texan, Weaver convinced the McCain to challenge George W. Bush for the Republican nomination in 2000--and, as top strategist, lovingly oversaw every aspect of that year's "maverick" campaign. Weaver wasn't exactly placid. In fact, his outbursts were so frequent that staffers gave them a name: "W.O.W. moments," for Wrath of Weaver. He signature move? Throwing things. Pagers. A coffee table. A television. By New Hampshire, Weaver had sent at least two baseballs through office walls and smashed three Nokia cell phones. "I was actually hit by some of the shrapnel," Jim Merrill, McCain's South Carolina director, said at the time. As Dana Milbank wrote in the Washington Post, "Weaver uses his volatile temper to motivate his staff. If anybody is late for the morning meeting, he orders the next day's held half an hour earlier... Before a telephone tirade, he'll tell people around him to 'watch this.'" McCain, of course, lost the nomination.

Then there's Jimmy Carter. In 1976, Carter entrusted his electoral fortunes to a disheveled Southern operative named Hamilton Jordan, who devised the smart strategy of using the Iowa caucuses to lift the Georgia governor out of obscurity. He was known for "his extraordinary reticence." When truly angry, Jordan didn't lose his temper, but withdrew, physically or mentally. "No one who has covered a Southern courthouse could mistake the look on Jordan's face when he doesn't want to answer: chin uplifted slightly, eyes hooded," wrote the Washington Post. "It's not quite defensive, but it expresses an old Southern notion that power is best exercised quietly, and that only a fool talks about what he's going to do before he's done it." Four years later, however, pollster Pat Caddell--an Irish-American with a legendary temper--had a stronger hold on the reins. "Stories are told, over and over, by veterans of past campaigns: of screaming fights ending with a standard refrain of 'I'll ruin you!' or 'You're finished!,'" wrote the Post. "Of intimidating calls, doors slamming shut, phones slamming down. 'He scars you,' says one recipient of the Caddell Treatment." Carter went on to lose the 1980 election to Ronald Reagan, and Caddell went on to guide Gary Hart, Walter Mondale and Joe Biden to defeat.

I don't mean to blame these losses on Caddell's shouting or Weaver's throwing--or Bill Clinton's red-faced meddlingin this year's primary contest, for that matter. Not at all. Elections are decided by the voters, not the gurus--and there have been too many exceptions (like, say, James "The Ragin' Cajun" Carville in 1992) to impose some sort of rule. That said, the tone at the top can affect (and/or infect) the larger operation--perhaps by breeding resentment, which breeds defiance, which breeds inefficiency--and in recent elections, it seems, a "cooler" management style has prevailed off more often than not. Lee Atwater and Karl Rove--who ran George H.W. Bush's and George W. Bush's successful presidential campaigns--were known as nasty partisan pugilists well-practiced in dirty trickery. But they rarely blew up behind the scenes. The consultant who piloted the DOA John Kerry to the 2004 Democratic nomination, Mary Beth Cahill, was described at the time as "no small talk, no face time, no sucking up to the candidate, none of those operative-style temper tantrums, no passive aggression, no waste"--even if the "Shrum Curse" ultimately prevailed. And Ronald Reagan's people weren't especially piqued.

Will history repeat itself in 2008? This year, Barack Obama appears to be the candidate poised to prosper from in-house equanimity. The senator himself brags that he has "the right temperament for the presidency"-- not "too high and not "too low"--while David Plouffe, his low-key, geeky campaign manager, and David Axelrod, his soft-spoken strategist, have run his bid like it was a "private corporation." "Mr. Obama’s circle of advisers takes seriously his “no drama” mandate," writes the New York Times. "It is a point of pride in his campaign that there have been virtually no serious leaks to the news media... about internal division or infighting." So far this approach has worked wonders for the nominee, who came from nowhere in the Democratic primaries to defeat the party's most powerful machine and now leads in November's polls. Going forward, Schmidt job is to prove that rage can get results. If he can't, blood won't be the only thing he stands to lose.
 

Suzanne Smalley files onscene with McCain in Pennsylvania:

When John McCain descended on a Bethlehem, Penn. grocery store late yesterday afternoon, the unscheduled campaign stop, meant to highlight McCain's concern over skyrocketing food prices, instead quickly became a theater for the absurd. First, a cameraman knocked over several glass jars of Mott's applesauce, which rolled near McCain's feet as he posed for a bevy of cameras while strolling the grocery aisles. Then, the senator's hastily assembled press conference, held in front of a perishable food case labeled "Dairy Delights," was interrupted by the scream of the store's P.A. system announcing a staffer had a phone call. Finally, there was the fact that Renee Gould, the young mother McCain had an extended chat with about the high price of tomatoes and milk, was not a random shopper, but an area resident funneled to the campaign by the local Republican Party.  Gould's admission (a reporter cornered her and asked how she came to be there) was ultimately not all that surprising. Even with the amusing mishaps, the entire event came off as canned, and McCain—whose discomfort with the phoniness required by politics has always been evident—spent most of his time shifting uncomfortably.

Still, McCain did what he could to stick to his message, reading from a note card in his hand as he told reporters gathered for the dairy aisle press conference that, "Among other challenges that American families face: The price of a gallon of milk just went over $4 a gallon." McCain, who has tried to focus more on domestic issues recently, also lamented that high oil prices are trickling down to other sectors of the economy and driving up the cost of food. But the senator's effort to set a tone for the press conference was ignored by members of the press, who were not interested in discussing food prices. Instead, reporters hammered McCain on recent foreign policy gaffes; his feelings about the intense attention being paid to Barack Obama's foreign trip; policy toward Israel; and his vice presidential search. (When pressed on the last point, McCain allowed that top contenders Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty and Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, are "the future of the Republican party, the next generation of leadership").

After the press conference, McCain made his way back to the front of the store, where Gould was unloading her groceries with the help of her husband and two young daughters. The senator stood awkwardly next to her and again tried to make stilted small talk about the high price of food. Gould coyly asked, "You're going to be my bagger?" McCain didn't, in fact, bag and seemed to be searching for conversation topics, even as he looked into a field of cameras. Gould's bill came to $105, which she noted is more than she used to pay.

McCain was a hit with the crowd, but the stampeding media was not. Most in the crowd seemed to take the side of the stern campaign staffers demanding reporters stay at least six feet from the senator. "They're rude," one woman could be heard saying about the reporters, who were camped out with boom mikes and note pads fighting for prime real estate with a view of McCain. Other shoppers were merely dumbfounded to show up for groceries mid-afternoon and find a presidential candidate on the stump with a full entourage of cameras. "It's kind of weird with all this media here," said Amber Huff, 23, looking around in a daze. But Huff had a camera of her own and documented the moment by taking a photo of McCain with her hot pink cell phone. Shoppers in Kalamazoo, Toledo and Reno take note—campaign staffers say they plan to start making many more such stops in the near future.
 

As John McCain and his Republican allies have ratcheted up their attacks on Barack Obama's foreign-policy record in recent days, they've repeated one criticism in particular: that Obama once voted "against our troops." The swipe first appeared last Friday in a McCain spot called, appropriately enough, "Troop Funding"; it resurfaced today in the RNC's new "Obama Chooses Washington Over Our Military" ad (above), which, as we reported earlier, is set to air tomorrow in Berlin, N.H., Berlin, Penn. and Berlin, Wisc. "There are few votes as important as funding our men and women in uniform," says the announcer. "But when our military needed necessary resources, Barack Obama failed to stand up."

The attack itself--which has been a staple of the Republican playbook since the Iraq war began in 2003--isn't particularly noteworthy. What's intriguing, however, is how much Obama's response to it has changed over the past five days. As we wrote last week, portraying Obama's 2007 vote against a war-funding bill is misleading--especially because McCain himself voted against H.R. 1591, an emergency spending bill designed to fund the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and provide more than $1 billion to the Department of Veterans Affairs. The truth is, McCain was opposing a bill that included a timetable for withdrawal and Obama was opposing one that didn't. Neither candidate was actually voting "against the troops." 

Last Friday, Chicago chose to respond to "Troop Funding" by fighting fire with fire. "MCCAIN REPEATEDLY VOTED AGAINST AND OBAMA REPEATEDLY VOTED FOR FUNDING FOR MILITARY EQUIPMENT FOR SOLDIERS," wrote spokesman Hari Sevugan in an email to reporters--repeating, in effect, the same misleading, out-of context attack that McCain was leveling against the Illinois senator. Today, however, Sevugan--now reacting to the RNC's ad--was a changed man. "There are honest differences between Senator Obama’s position on Iraq and Senator McCain’s," he said. "But there’s no question that both support our troops. Under the RNC’s definition, John McCain would have also chosen politics over our military when he urged George Bush to veto funding for the troops, and we know that’s not the case. This is the sort of distasteful and misleading attack from the Rove playbook that the American people are tired of." As Ben Smith puts it, Sevugan went for "a high-road tone last seen (on both sides) sometime late last summer." This doesn't mean, necessarily, that Obama is taking the high road; it means that he wants voters to think he's taking the high road. Going after the political process is as much a political tactic as going after your opponent's strengths.

The shift is subtle, but it's also revealing. In the five days since "Troop Funding" first aired, Obama has enjoyed a remarkable run of foreign-policy successes--or strokes of luck--from Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki endorsing his withdrawal plan to President Bush dispatching a government official to chat with Iranian leaders. McCain, meanwhile, has been forced to go negative--early and often--to compete for coverage. The result is a definite change in dynamic. While Obama now "seems" confident, competent and unperturbed--swanning around the globe with foreign leaders has that effect--McCain suddenly "seems" angry, annoyed and even desperate. (NB: "Seems" is the operative word here; it's about political perceptions.) On Friday, Team Obama felt they had to aggressively rebut the "anti-soldier" attack; today, they're comfortable dismissing it as "old politics" and floating above the fray. Chicago clearly hopes that Obama's overseas adventure will allow him to maintain that kind of altitude for the rest of the race. But they should be careful what they wish for. If you'll recall, Al Gore and John Kerry followed similar flight patterns in 2000 and 2004--and lost. Obama is undoubtedly a savvier strategist. Still, he shouldn't forget that McCain--and the Bush-Rove alums on his team--know a thing or two about combat.
 

With the U.S. media elite slobbering over Barack Obama's every overseas event, Team McCain has found some pretty creative ways to keep its candidate in this week's papers.

Initially, "a very senior aide" ginned up buzz for the Republican nominee by telling veteran conservative columnist Bob Novak (inaccurately) that a veep announcement was imminent and "suggest[ing] [he] put it out. "I've since been told by certain people that this was a dodge and that they were trying to get some publicity to rain on Obama's campaign,'' Novak said yesterday on FOX News. "It's pretty reprehensible if it's true."

Then McCain's staff started to make fun of the press--first with a web ad declaring that reporters are "in love" with Obama, then with laminated press passes labeled “McCain Press Corps JV Squad” and “Left behind to report in America.”  Both gimmicks garnered significant coverage, mostly because journalists love to write about themselves.

Finally, while Obama rallies thousands in Berlin, Germany tomorrow, the RNC will air radio ads promoting McCain’s candidacy in three domestic Berlins: Berlin, New Hampshire; Berlin, Pennsylvania; and Berlin, Wisconsin. Adorable! Given that a combined total of 18,000 people live in that trio of swing-state towns, the point--again--is to get mentioned in stories that otherwise would've been 100 percent Obama, and not, you know, to get votes.

After all that, you'd think the creative minds at McCain HQ would be exhausted. Think again. Aiming to counterprogram Obama's Berlin speech on trans-Atlantic relations, Team McCain announced this afternoon that the candidate will helicopter from Louisiana to an oil rig in the Gulf Coast Thursday to make the case for expanded off-shore drilling. According to Politico's Jonathan Martin, "the GOP nominee will be joined by a small press pool of reporters and photographers on a trek sure to offer memorable images." Even better: Hurricane Dolly is currently lashing the South Texas coast with sustained winds of 100 mph--which is something, Martin writes, that "campaign aides have been watching... closely." Here's hoping that the forecast is safe enough for McCain to follow through--but still "dangerous" enough to involve some dramatic breezes and foreboding clouds. Because nothing says "cover it" to a cable producer like the story of a man pursuing his photo-op, the elements be damned.

No word yet whether McCain plans to address global warming from the inside of an active volcano. 

UPDATE, 4:00 p.m.: Only an hour after finalizing the oil-rig adventure, Team McCain has called the whole thing off. The reason? "Weather," says spokesman MIchael Goldfarb. Or at least that's what they want us to believe. It's worth noting, however, that "the Coast Guard closed 29 miles of the Mississippi River at New Orleans after a 600-foot tanker and a barge loaded with fuel oil collided Wednesday, breaking the barge in half" and spilling "more than 419,000 gallons of heavy, almost tar-like fuel" that formed "a slick 12 miles long." Promoting off-shore drilling within spitting distance of a giant oil spill would've guaranteed considerable coverage for McCain--but probably not the kind he was looking for.

The time has come, I think, for the senator to invest in some new lucky charms. Rumor has it that Obama keeps a "tiny monkey god" in his pocket--in case anyone over in Crystal City was wondering.

New posters from John McCain and Barack Obama. Which would you rather have on your bedroom wall? (Other than "neither.")

(Via Ambinder) 

Design can be revealing. Both posters seek to portray their subjects as steely, messianic, future-oriented leaders--which is why they're both gazing at some distant, meaningful horizon. But whereas the Obama graphic supports this message visually--the upward sweep of the text conveys optimism while also evoking the internationalist spirit of modern Europe (see: the bold diagonals and sans serif fonts of Bauhaus-style  design)--McCain's seems somewhat conflicted. "Wisdom" equals intelligence but also suggests the past. Marbling connotes solidity but also implies antiquity (both classical and Clinton-era). The warplanes may be returning from combat--or leaving on a mission. And you can't tell if the sun is rising or setting.

Also, it looks like the cover of "The Sum of All Fears" by Tom Clancy.

UPDATE: More on Obama and Bauhaus from Meaningful Distractions: "Many Germans will recognize this little tip-of-the-hat to German graphic design history, and those that recognize it will appreciate it. This type of move wouldn’t even occur to the McCain campaign, despite the fact that McCain was born around the time German Bauhaus was all the rage."
 

Suzanne Smalley files this report from the McCain roadshow:

John McCain may not be the shoot from the hip maverick of old, but he hasn’t lost his sense of humor. After a long day of loading on and off buses and planes, a press wrangler tonight told reporters the campaign had a “surprise” gift, adding that it is one that campaign officials, at least, consider “pretty funny.” With that, the staffer walked down the aisle and handed out laminated press ID cards emblazoned with the words “McCain Press Corps JV Squad” underneath a photo of the Statue of Liberty. The caption? “Left behind to report in America.” The reverse side of the ID offered a French translation of the same text along with a picture of a beret wearing pseudo-Frenchman pouring a glass of wine. Mon Dieu!

The “gift” was the latest in a succession of not so subtle hints that the McCain camp is displeased with the coverage of Barack Obama’s foreign trip. With Obama earning largely positive reviews abroad, McCain spent today fighting back. The Arizona senator slammed his rival for opposing the surge in troops that McCain famously backed when it wasn’t politically popular to do so.  He ridiculed Obama for never having met David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, before this trip. And he suggested that Obama must not understand what is happening in Iraq since he is refusing to acknowledge recent success there. But even with his campaign’s increasingly well-honed message, the Arizona senator has faced difficulty waging the debate on his terms. As the situation in Iraq improves, most Americans are focused on their desire for the war to end, a discussion that favors Obama. That reality, however, hasn’t stopped McCain from trying to redefine the conversation.

“This is a clear choice the American people have,” McCain told a crowd of about 400 gathered at a town hall meeting in Rochester, New Hampshire yesterday afternoon. “I had the courage and the judgment to say that I would rather lose a political campaign then lose a war. It seems to me that Senator Obama would rather lose a war in order to win a political campaign.” The inclusion of the phrase “in order to” sparked much chatter amongst the press corps traveling with McCain, who sit in town hall meeting after town hall meeting, often without hearing anything discernibly different. McCain’s words yesterday in New Hampshire—the state is in many ways a second home to the Arizona senator, having twice brought McCain’s political fortunes back from the dead—clearly represented a ratcheting up of his rhetoric. Add to the mix newly leaked reports of a McCain veep pick this week and it’s hard not to conclude that the McCain camp has an aggressive strategy for staking its claim to this news cycle. (Conservative columnist Bob Novak is on record saying he feels “used” by what he now thinks was a deliberate ruse by the McCain camp to gin up buzz for their candidate by leaking him bad information about McCain announcing his vice president this week. The alleged tactic comes as McCain’s team openly gripes about what they view as a media juggernaut bolstering Obama’s prospects with fawning coverage of his foreign trip).

You can’t blame the McCain camp for battling hard on many fronts. McCain can’t afford to cede any ground to Obama this week. According to recent polls, McCain is well ahead of Obama when it comes to voters’ perception of who is a stronger commander in chief. But McCain’s advanced age, lack of speaking polish and admitted weakness on the economy make it especially critical for him to maintain his edge on national security issues. To that end, McCain spoke extensively about Obama’s opposition to the surge yesterday. “My opponent said the surge would not succeed, that he wanted us out. If he had had his way we would have been out last March, we would have never done the surge, we would never have succeeded, and we would have had defeat,” McCain said at the town hall meeting, which was held inside a small opera house in downtown Rochester. Expect McCain to continue flogging the same message today when he takes advantage of Obama’s absence by barnstorming through the key swing state of Pennsylvania, with stops scheduled in Wilkes-Barre, Allentown, and Bethlehem.

For reporters on McCain’s plane the message discipline has its downside. McCain’s schedule has been tightly controlled with little of the freewheeling access that was once the norm. A small group of national reporters rotate covering press availabilities that are largely dedicated to answering questions from local reporters. Much of the senator’s time is also spent raising money. Yesterday a plane full of reporters flew to Baltimore solely so the senator could attend a fundraiser. Except for a small group of pool reporters, the press corps whiled away the evening at Mo’s Fisherman’s Seafood Factory, where the jumbo lump crab cakes were as big as baseballs. Some days may be slow, but at least they know how to feed us.
 

In a June 7 strategy briefing (above), John McCain campaign manager Rick Davis rattled off a list of states that his boss was well-positioned to win: California, Michigan, Wisconsin, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Ohio and Pennsylvania. Unfortunately, most of McCain's advantages have vanished since Barack Obama cemented his status as the Democratic nominee. In California, Obama leads by an insurmountable 17.6 points; in Connecticut, he's up by 20. But that's no surprise--after all, John Kerry won both states by huge margins in 2004. What is surprising is that Obama is actually outperforming Kerry in 2004's closest contests--ten points better in Wisconsin; six points better in Pennsylvania; and six points better in Ohio. With the exception of New Hampshire--arguably McCain's second home--only one state on Davis's list actually represents a real map-changing opportunity at this point in the race: Michigan. In fact, a poll released yesterday shows Obama ahead by a mere two points, 43 to 41.

Could McCain really win the Great Lakes State, which has voted Democratic in every election since 1992? And if so, how?

The answer to the first question is maybe. If McCain hopes to win in November, he'll need a pickup in Michigan to offset likely losses in Iowa, New Mexico and Colorado. "We can expect to see lots of Dearborn-to-Toledo bus tours for the Straight Talk Express," writes Patrick Ruffini. In July polling, the Arizona senator trails by an average of five percent--which is slightly smaller than the gap between Bush and Kerry exactly four years ago. Over at Fivethirtyeight.com, FOS (Friend of Stumper) Nate Silver predicts that McCain has a 31 percent chance of victory--his best odds in any of the blue states listed as "Lean Obama." And undecideds, according to the latest EPIC-MRA poll, view the Republican more favorably than his rival: 58 percent to 51 percent. If McCain wins, experts say, it will be a combination of character--i.e., his image as a "maverick warrior" appeals to the state's unique blend of urban blue-collar types and rural outdoorsmen--and circumstance: thanks to a defunct Democratic primary, Obama didn't campaign in Michigan from July 2007 until May 2008 and is still (strangely enough) a somewhat unknown quantity on the ground. McCain, meanwhile, has visited 40 times since January 2007 (including a trip to the GM plant in Warren last Friday) and outraised Obama locally. Naming former rival Mitt Romney as his running mate--a choice that could come as early as this week--could very well boost McCain's bid in Wolverine Country, where Romney's father was governor and the family brand is strong. Which may be why Romney is rumored to top McCain's shortlist.

But not all Michigan news is good news for the Republican. In fact, the last EPIC-MRA poll, taken in May, showed McCain leading by four points--which means that Obama has gained six since capturing the nomination and making his first stops in the state (10 in all since May 14) in nearly a year. According to Republican pollster Tony Fabrizio, this could mean that McCain's head start is disappearing and that Obama--who's already blanketing the state with ads and plans to visit several more times before November--still has plenty of room to grow. "What we've seen now [in the surveys] is a shift towards Obama -- not a huge shift, a subtle shift," Fabrizio said. "The question now is whether that trend continues." If it does, McCain is probably doomed. But for now, Michigan remains his best shot at a pickup.
 

By Holly Bailey 
(Item originally posted July 21, 10:18 p.m.) 

Is John McCain going to announce his vice presidential running mate this week? The political world is all atwitter this evening about a Bob Novak item posted late today suggesting that McCain is readying a surprise announcement of his veep pick in hopes of sucking all the oxygen out of Barack Obama's trip overseas. Is it going to happen? Two words: Who knows? McCain's not talking--nor are any of his small circle of senior staff who are actually involved in the selection and have long said they won't discuss in any way, shape or form the VP process.

But let's look at the clues: McCain tomorrow is holding a town hall near Mitt Romney's vacation home in New Hampshire, and reporters on the trail this week with McCain have been put on notice that there might be an additional event tomorrow. Key word there: "might." In other words, OMG! Now if the rumor mill is to be believed, Romney is near the top of McCain's list--indeed, the former gov even gets namechecked in the aforementioned Novak item. Could McCain possibly show up tomorrow in New Hampshire with Romney, his former foe, and announce they are not only close friends but now running mates? Anything's possible. The setting, after all, would be special for McCain--New Hampshire is the state that raised the onetime underdog's campaign from the dead, not once but twice. And, bingo, McCain would probably lead the evening newscasts tomorrow. Not a bad scenario for a campaign openly frustrated with the news media's fascination with Obama's trip overseas. But hold your horses, we have another suspicious stop on the itinerary. Over the weekend, McCain's campaign announced a late addition to the senator's schedule this week: a quick trip to New Orleans. There, McCain is set to meet with Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, another oft-mentioned veep possibility. Cue the buzz machine!

Is anything going to happen this week? The only people who really know aren't talking. But even if McCain holds off on his announcement, his campaign does score something of a message victory, in that all the ramped up speculation on the senator's intentions is keeping the focus on him. In other words, the head fake, if that's what it is, might just accomplish part--if not all--of what actually naming a running mate could do for McCain this week, in terms of coverage. While McCain himself hasn't said much about his veep search--except for that he won't talk about it--it is worth noting that he told reporters on his plane in March that he wouldn't mind waiting to see who Obama picks before naming his own running mate. Is that strategy still operable? Stay tuned.

Read Stumper's take on Romney as veep here and here; for Jindal, click here.
 

When former Texas senator and then-current John McCain economic adviser Phil Gramm said last week that America was a "nation of whiners" mired in a mere "mental recession" (prompting a predictable firestorm of controversy) the Republican nominee joked that his colleague "would be in serious consideration for Ambassador to Belarus" in a future administration-- adding "although I'm not sure the citizens of Minsk would welcome that." Now, it seems, Gramm will have plenty of time brush up on his Belarusian.

In a statement issued after last night's network news broadcasts--no better time for bad news than after dinner on Friday--Gramm announced that he was stepping down from his post as national co-chair for McCain. The reason: he didn't want to be a distraction. "It is clear to me that Democrats want to attack me rather than debate Senator McCain on important economic issues facing the country," he said. "That kind of distraction hurts not only Senator McCain's ability to present concrete programs to deal with the country's problems, it hurts the country."

The move came after several days of confusion about exactly what role the off-message Gramm would play on McCain's campaign. Last weekend, two of McCain's other economic advisers, Doug Holtz-Eakin and Carly Fiorina, indicated that Gramm would no longer talk to the media or act as a surrogate on the candidate's behalf, with Holtz-Eakin going so far as to say that Gramm would stop advising McCain by cell phone as well. But spokesman Tucker Bounds insisted at the time that the campaign had not made "any substantive status change to his volunteer post on the campaign." That changed yesterday when McCain's team apparently decided that even retaining Gramm in a behind-the-scenes position wasn't worth the political costs--namely, continued attacks on McCain's economic empathy from Democratic rival Barack Obama. 

Gramm is the latest surrogate to succumb to what's become 2008's most potent political weapon: guilt by association. Previously, former Rep. Tom Loeffler, also from Texas, quit his McCain co-chair post after reports about his lobbying by NEWSWEEK's Michael Isikoff distracted from the campaign message; on the other side of the aisle, Obama foreign policy adviser Samantha Power was forced to tender her resignation after calling Hillary Clinton "a monster" in an off-the-record conversation with a reporter. 

Perhaps they can practice their Belarusian together. 
 

John McCain sure knows how to say bon voyage. 

With Barack Obama packing his bags for next week's journey to Europe and the Middle East--where the entire U.S. political press corps will watch, dumbstruck, as hope and change and audaciousness spread unbridled o'er the land--the Arizona Republican this afternoon gave his rival a not-so-friendly parting gift: the first real negative ad of the 2008 general-election cycle. Called "Troop Funding," the blistering spot uses the Democrat's overseas trip to compare him unfavorably to McCain on national security and press the case that he's a no-good, yellow-bellied, flip-flopping opportunist.

The only problem: it doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

The ad accuses Obama of three offenses: he "never held a single Senate hearing on Afghanistan," even though he chairs the Senate foreign relations subcommittee tasked with overseeing military operations in that country; he "hasn't been to Iraq in years"; and he "vot[ed] against funding our troops." All of these, says an announcer, are "positions that helped him win his nomination"--and now that he has, "he's changing to help himself become president." So what's wrong here? For starters, none of these "positions" actually helped Obama win the Democratic nod. It's not like the party was looking for a troop-hating, Iraq-avoiding, hearing-skipping candidate and Obama happened to fit the bill. So the whole "he's changing to help himself" accusation isn't particularly convincing.

More importantly, while the individual complaints may sound damning when simplified and strung together, they quickly crumble upon closer examination--especially as contrasts with McCain. It's true that Obama never held a single Senate hearing on Afghanistan--but that's because Joe Biden, the chairman of the Foreign Relations committee, has insisted that hearings on this critical issue be held at the full committee level, and not at the subcommittee level. It's also true that Obama has only attended on Afghanistan-related Senate meeting over the past two years, as McCain has loudly noted elsewhere. Unfortunately, McCain's record--he's attended zero of his Armed Services committee's six hearings on the subject since 2006--is even worse. Sadly, that's what happens when you're running for president--the day job suffers. Neither Obama nor McCain should treat his opponent's Capitol Hill absences as especially unusual. Nor should voters.

Then there's the little issue of "vot[ing] against funding our troops." Sounds despicable, right? Unfortunately, it's just another example of the way Washington works. Obama did, in fact, vote against a 2007 war-funding bill. But it wasn't because he hates American soldiers. Instead, he was registering an objection to legislation that "lacked a timetable for troop withdrawal"--a position that arguably means he was more concerned about troop well-being, not less. Reasonable people can disagree over whether timetables are warranted. But portraying this as a vote "against the troops" is silly. It's also a game two can play. On March 29, 2007, McCain voted against H.R. 1591, an emergency spending bill designed to fund the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and provide more than $1 billion to the Department of Veterans Affairs. Why? Because it included a timetable for troop withdrawal. Does than make him a anti-soldier? Not at all. But it wouldn't stop an opponent from characterizing his vote--unfairly--as such.

Finally, there's Iraq. This is probably McCain's most meaningful beef with Obama. Since May, the Arizonan, who visits every few months, has said that his rival, who hasn't visited since 2006, should return and assess the changing conditions in person. He's right. As my NEWSWEEK colleague Michael Hirsh noted earlier today, "the Democratic senator missed witnessing the sectarian violence that roiled Iraq for more a year, and he has not had a firsthand look at the surge's success even as he has continued to say he would withdraw troops within 16 months of his presidency." But there are two important caveats to consider. One, heavily chaperoned congressional travel doesn't always offer the most accurate (or revealing) view of a war zone. Take McCain's April 1, 2007 trip to Baghdad. At the time, McCain claimed that his stroll through an open-air market proved that people could now "walk freely" through the city. But it was later reported that the candidate wore a flak jacket and received protection from 100 soldiers, three Blackhawk helicopters and two Apache gunships during his promenade; snipers returned the next day and murdered a few Shiite merchants. (CNN even deemed the area too dangerous to visit without military escort.) Second, Obama is already planning do this summer what McCain has said he should do--that is, visit Iraq. This doesn't change the fact that he should've gone earlier. But it does instantly outdate the Republican's attack.

Ultimately, McCain is trying to frame Obama as a no* know-nothing foreign-policy novice maneuvering for maximum political gain. He may have a point. He may not. But by choosing to focus "Troop Funding" on matters of symbolism rather than substance, he doesn't really make it.

*D'oh.
 

 
Spotted by NEWSWEEK's own Holly Bailey in John McCain's seat on board his campaign plane Thursday afternoon: "The Return of History and the End of Dreams" by Robert Kagan, neoconservative thinker and informal McCain adviser. 

In case you're curious, Kagan is "a hate figure for large sections of the left... [who] has been blamed for many things, prominent among them being one of the intellectual authors and cheerleaders for the US-led war in Iraq." His slim volume is essentially an extended essay on how "autocracy is making a comeback" and how "the new era, rather than being a time of 'universal values,' will be one of growing tensions and sometimes confrontation between the forces of democracy and the forces of autocracy." Here's how New York Times chief Washington correspondent David E. Sanger summarized Kagan's argument in his recent review: "The cold war may be over, but anyone who thinks the result was really 'the end of history' — a consensus that liberal democracy is the future — should take another look." Like his fellow neocons, Kagan boasts "an untrammeled faith in democracy as an engine of peace," so his prescription for dealing with resurgent autocracies in "a world where the United Nations Security Council is 'hopelessly paralyzed' and NATO is happiest parachuting into territory where there is little chance of hearing gunfire," as Sanger puts it, is a something called a "league of democracies."

If you've been following the campaign at all, this should sound familiar. On March 26, McCain gave a speech on foreign policy in Los Angeles that was billed as his most comprehensive statement on the subject. The centerpiece? A league of democracies. In his address, McCain proposed that the United States expel Russia and exclude China from the G8, the group of advanced industrial countries, and take in both India and Brazil, creating a group that would, in the words of my NEWSWEEK colleague Fareed Zakaria, "presumably play the role that the United Nations now does, except that all nondemocracies would be cast outside the pale." Fareed, for one, is not a fan. Calling the McCain/Kagan proposal "the most radical idea put forward by a major candidate for the presidency in 25 years," he questioned how the League of Democracies would fight terrorism while excluding countries like Jordan, Morocco, Egypt and Singapore; secure loose nukes without Russia's cooperation; and coordinate problems of the emerging global economy by putting China on the sidelines.

Maybe you disagree. That's fine. The point is, Kagan is "one of the few foreign policy intellectuals that [McCain] seems to respect." So much so, in fact, that the senator now seems to be rereading "The Return of History." (Judging by his effusive blurb on the book's back flap--"important, timely, superbly-written"--he has already read it at least once.) As the political press spends its newsless summer obsessing over cartoons and "nuts" and Obama's excessive exercising, it'd probably benefit every serious voter--that is, every voter serious enough to wonder how a President McCain would alter American foreign policy--to crack its cover as well.
 

As I read Michael Crowley's excellent profile of McCain assistant, speechwriter and all-around alter ego Mark Salter in the New Republic this morning, I was struck by one section in particular. Frustrated by constant criticism of his boss's oratorical abilities, Salter, Crowley reports,