Obama’s Presidential Pretensions Last week, there was mostly fawning in the press over Obama’s tour d’Europe while ridicule accompanied McCain’s tour of a grocery store.

While the democratic nominee was acting presidential, McCain helped a mom pick groceries in Pennsylvania. Obama scaled oratory heights in Berlin; McCain just looked awkward in Bethlehem. Obama’s trip was a tour de force; McCain’s grocery store visit was a tour de farce.

The press fed the excitement over Obama with one reporter rhapsodizing that the trip was “a slam dunk success”. (Where have we heard that phrase before?) Obama honed his foreign policy credentials as he lunched with the troops, rode in a helicopter with General Petraeus and met with Prime Ministers and Presidents.

Though McCain was once in command, the press liked the image of Obama acting in command. Obama’s speech in Berlin was favorably compared to ones given in the same city by Presidents Kennedy, Reagan and Clinton. All that was missing was a band playing “Hail to the Chief”.

The political winds are blowing Barack Obama’s way. The economy is in the tank, and it costs more to fill your tank. Your house is worth less, and many Americans are losing theirs. Abroad, we are still bogged down in Baghdad, the Taliban is back in business and Iran is increasingly irrational.

If you are Obama or a democrat, you have to like his chances. What’s not to like?

For starters, Obama is acting like he is president before being elected president. With all the pomp and circumstance surrounding his excellent European trip and the accolades to which he returned, the risk for Obama is that people at home might view him more pompous and presumptuous than presidential.

We Americans don’t much like people who get too big for their britches. We tend to want to cut them down to size. In elections, that usually means we vote for the other guy. Al Gore was smarter than George Bush and wanted you to know it. Gore was too much of a smarty pants. Bush was the guy you wanted to have a beer with and shoot the breeze. John Kerry gave the impression that instead of shooting the breeze, he would rather enjoy the breeze on his veranda with a glass of champagne–hardly something most voters would relate to. Well, isn’t Obama, with his soaring eloquence more like JFK? Well yes, but JFK was also a war hero and we listened to his rhetoric knowing that he had paid his dues.

Obama lost the primary in Pennsylvania because he bowled gutter balls without removing his tie, and wouldn’t drink shots like Hillary. To the voters of Pennsylvania, Hillary was more of a guy than the guy.

With polls saying that voters are more concerned about the economy than foreign affairs (we needed a poll to tell us that?), the picture of McCain looking like a shlub shopping in a Safeway, empathizing with a mom over the price of milk while Barack was in Berlin and Paris, just might turn out to be shrewder politics than we or even McCain first thought.

Obama’s trip might have been a slam dunk success, but the last time we heard the term “slam dunk” was before we invaded Iraq. McCain is hoping that Obama’s foreign foray will lead him to a similar fate.  4:10 PM •