Below The Beltway

Matthew Yglesias encapsulates this week in a nutshell:

[Remember when] John McCain’s big criticism of Barack Obama was that he didn’t take enough foreign trips — especially to Iraq — and how he hadn’t been adequately tested on this big stage of CODELing. What happened to that? Now the critique is that too many Germans are interested in hearing him talk since, I guess, all else being equal we’d rather have a president foreigners find repugnant. But seriously, what’s next? John McCain swore up and down that if Obama went to Iraq he’d find that the facts on the ground contradicted his Iraq position. Instead we found that in the modern day it’s possible to form opinions about countries you haven’t visited recently and that Iraqi leaders are broadly supportive of his approach to Iraq while universally condemning McCain’s vision of a perpetual American military presence there. Meanwhile, meetings with leaders in other countries in the region seem to have gone fine and we’re about to find out that Obama’s the kind of president who’d start off with enough initial popularity amidst our key allies that he’d be in a position to reinvigorate the transatlantic partnership. All-in-all, a pretty successful trip but especially successful when you consider that pressuring Obama into taking it was the McCain campaign’s big plan.

It’s pretty obvious why the McCain was harping on the Obama-should-go-to-Iraq meme a few months ago. For one thing, it pointed out the fact that, when it comes to foreign policy at least, McCain clearly has more experience than Obama and, according to most polls, voters rank him higher than Obama on issues related to national security and the War on Terror. For another, it allowed McCain to make the argument that Obama had formulated his position on Iraq and Afghanistan without actually visiting the country and talking to General Petraeus — a phony argument of course, but one that got McCain much valued free media coverage all the time. Pointing out the fact that Obama had not been to Iraq in more than a year, then, was a way for McCain to bring to voters’ attention the very national security issues that seem to be an advantage for him in the election.

And you can add into that the hope that somehow Obama would screw this trip up. That he’d make some verbal gaffe that would be repeated on cable news and YouTube’d to death that would be just what the McCain camp needed to point out the contrasts they want the public to draw between the two candidates.

Then the trip happened.

While Obama was meeting troops and foreign leaders in Afghanistan and Iraq, touring Israel and Jordan, and giving what seemed to me like a fairly well received speech in Berlin, John McCain was visiting a grocery store in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania and spending time with George H.W. Bush driving around in a golf cart in Kennebunkport.

The contrast couldn’t have been more apparent, and it further shows how disorganized the McCain campaign seems to be. Did they really think they could just pin their hopes on Obama messing up this week and not do any counterprogramming ? (And, no, a grocery store in Wilkes-Barre is not comparable to the Western Wall in Jersusalem) Yes, I know that there was some plan to send McCain to an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico that was cancelled at the last minute because of Hurricane Dolly, but even that was clearly a last-minute media stunt.

On some level, I think McCain lost this week simply because the Obama campaign called their bluff. Honestly, I don’t think they thought he would.