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Ssg. Lorie Jewell, HO/AP
U.S. presidential candidate Barack Obama speaks with the top U.S. military commander in
Iraq, David Petraeus, at Baghdad International Airport, Iraq.
U.S. presidential candidate Barack Obama speaks with the top U.S. military commander in
Iraq, David Petraeus, at Baghdad International Airport, Iraq.
Presidential Candidates’ Foreign Travel Unprecedented
July 22, 2008 08:57 AM
by
Liz Colville
The presidential candidates’ summer travels abroad have signaled a historical shift from the “three I’s”—Italy, Ireland and Israel—to countries at the forefront of both candidates’ agendas.
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Illinois senator and Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama is in the midst of a foreign tour that will include Iraq, Afghanistan and Germany, and Republican candidate John McCain recently concluded a trip to Colombia and Mexico.
Historically speaking, there is little precedent for presidential candidates’ travel abroad, especially this early in the campaign. Visits to Italy, Ireland and Israel, which together make up a vast amount of Americans’ heritage, have frequently been on presidents’ travel itineraries, Stephen Hess of the Brookings Institution told NPR.
McCain’s trip to Latin America and Obama’s trip to the Middle East signal the candidates’ “very different” economic and foreign policies, Hess adds.
For Obama, the trip is also an opportunity to broker relations with foreign leaders and assert his positions on issues like the war in Iraq. It is well-timed to more flexible statements on U.S. troop withdrawal from Iraq by both the White House and the Prime Minister of Iraq.
Obama’s lack of experience on the world stage has drawn criticism from both his former Democratic rival Hillary Clinton and from Senator McCain, but he has regularly spoken of the importance of restoring the United States’ image abroad.
Former President Jimmy Carter made similar trips in the lead-up to his presidential run in an attempt to counter doubts of his political inexperience.
Historically speaking, there is little precedent for presidential candidates’ travel abroad, especially this early in the campaign. Visits to Italy, Ireland and Israel, which together make up a vast amount of Americans’ heritage, have frequently been on presidents’ travel itineraries, Stephen Hess of the Brookings Institution told NPR.
McCain’s trip to Latin America and Obama’s trip to the Middle East signal the candidates’ “very different” economic and foreign policies, Hess adds.
For Obama, the trip is also an opportunity to broker relations with foreign leaders and assert his positions on issues like the war in Iraq. It is well-timed to more flexible statements on U.S. troop withdrawal from Iraq by both the White House and the Prime Minister of Iraq.
Obama’s lack of experience on the world stage has drawn criticism from both his former Democratic rival Hillary Clinton and from Senator McCain, but he has regularly spoken of the importance of restoring the United States’ image abroad.
Former President Jimmy Carter made similar trips in the lead-up to his presidential run in an attempt to counter doubts of his political inexperience.
Headline Link: ‘News in hot spots appears to aid Obama’
Politico notes that ahead of Obama’s arrival in Iraq, there appeared to be increased flexibility over U.S. troop withdrawal from the country. On July 18, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki of Iraq and the White House “jointly announced that they were in support of a “general time horizon” for withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq, marking a break from the Bush administration’s previous refusal to discuss a timeline.”
Source: Politico
Background: Another presidential hopeful abroad
Harold Stassen, a frontrunner in the 1947 race for the Republican presidential nominee (he eventually lost to Thomas Dewey), took a “two-month, 18-country tour” around Europe in the spring of 1947, where he remarked that the continent’s problems “are essentially economic; at the heart of them is coal.” Time magazine wrote at the time, “About domestic politics he had nothing to say.”
Source: Time
Opinions & Analysis: Bolstering Foreign Policy Skills Abroad
Steve Holland of Reuters notes that a “summer lull” is partly responsible for McCain and Obama’s recent flights abroad, and “in these days of instant news cycles and chattering cable television coverage, candidates are injecting different styles into the campaign to try to keep themselves in the news.” Presidential historian Douglas Brinkley added, “This is new, this notion of killing a couple of weeks of the summer months by going abroad and campaigning. Traditionally you don’t go anywhere where you can’t get a vote.”
Source: Reuters
The Christian Science Monitor observed earlier this year that the current presidential candidates have shown marked concern for the United States’ image abroad. Steve Kull, director of the Program for International Policy Attitudes at the University of Maryland, told the Monitor that improving America’s image is a “two-step process” involving long-term and short-term changes. “People are looking for signals, and if the president-elect hits the ground sending signals of concern about our standing in the world, that would have an impact right off the mark.”
Source: The Christian Science Monitor
In a discussion of presidential candidates abroad on NPR, Stephen Hess of the Brookings Institution contends that foreign trips abroad are standard fare for U.S. presidential candidates, though the chosen countries are typically the “three I’s”—Ireland, Italy and Israel—which are “mother countries of Americans who are a large voting bloc.”
Source: NPR
Anne Applebaum of Slate observes, “No one I’ve talked to can think of a real precedent” for McCain and Obama’s summer travel itineraries, but adds, “This wouldn't be happening—couldn't be happening—unless the campaign staffs didn't reckon that "abroad" matters at some level to American voters.”
Source: Slate
Related Topic: Obama’s Berlin plans changed
Senator Obama had planned to make a speech on July 24 at Berlin’s historic Brandenburg Gate, where Ronald Reagan gave a 1987 speech that included the famous line, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” But the Obama team had not consulted with German Chancellor Angela Merkel about the location. Merkel remarked that she found it inappropriate for the symbolic location to be used “as a campaign backdrop.” The location has since been changed.
Source: findingDulcinea
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