After all the McCain bashing, it looks like the man from Arizona may have more reason to smile than we anticipated. He's gaining on Obama in key battleground states. And despite all the good press Obama is getting for his foreign tour, it's making not a jot of difference to his standing in the national polls.
For the last couple of weeks at least, McCain's campaign has been, seemingly, all over the place, and Obama's been doing everything right. So what's going on?
Veteran Washington-watcher Joe Klein has a theory: that voters are seeing the pictures of Obama swanning around on a foreign trip and asking, why the hell isn't he here? We've got big problems at home.
If this is true, does it mean that Obama's campaign made a mistake in orchestrating this trip in the middle of the campaign? Not necessarily. The Commander-In-Chief hurdle is one they have to clear, and this trip will help, even if they're not being thanked for it by voters right now.
What it does mean is that they need to move on from that message once Obama gets back. If they harp on it as Hillary Clinton did before Iowa - due to her and Mark Penn's concern that a woman needed to work extra-hard to pass this test - they'll risk seeming out of touch. As long as Obama pivots back to the economy on his return he will probably be OK.
But these polls do make me think that the Berlin speech, in particular, is overreaching - a hubris moment that may backfire back at home.
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