Barack does Berlin, but there’s no JFK moment

Barack Obama’s first bit European speech, given in front of 200,000 Berliners on Thursday, seemed like a big success at first. Germany’s Der Spiegel was gushing in its praise: “Anyone who saw Barack Obama at Berlin's Siegessaule on Thursday could recognise that this man will become the 44th president of the United States,” wrote Gerhard Sporl. Obama looked “young, decisive and focused. For those who witnessed his appearance in Berlin, it is hard to imagine that John McCain has any chance.”

Obama introduced himself as a “citizen of the world” and spoke for 30 minutes. He spoke at length about a future in which America and Europe can work together. “Sometimes,” he said “on both sides of the Atlantic, we have drifted apart and forgotten our shared destiny." He also focused on the fight against climate change and his desire to "renew the goal of a world without nuclear weapons".

But while his speech may have been statesmanlike, was it a “JFK moment”? A speech to equal Kennedy’s ‘Ich Bin Ein Berliner’ address, given in the same city in 1963? The answer is ‘No’. “Obama was politically correct, vague, and almost boring,” wrote Jefferson Gray on the Daily Sanity Check blog. ”Obama did not say anything about his particular opinions. Nothing in his speech sounds like a personal statement... Mechanically repeating the need for being good to the planet does not make a charismatic personality.”

Clive Crook of the Atlantic was equally underwhelmed. “I thought his speech was disappointing. He played it very safe. What he said was insubstantial even by his standards, and sometimes painfully banal. And it seemed to me to lack the flair in delivery that usually makes up the deficit.”

Andrew Romano writes in Time that although the “sea of adoring foreigners holding hundreds of American flags was like glimpsing a utopian future”, it may have been John McCain, not Obama who broke ahead in recent days. The latest polls show McCain breaking ahead in Florida, where previously he trailed by five points. Obama’s lead in the crucial swing state of New Hampshire has shrunk from 12 points to two. The Republican Party’s prospects aren’t great, says Romano, “but McCain is still within striking distance”.

Stephen Medevic, writing on the Polysigh political blog, thinks he knows why Obama’s international tour hasn’t helped his poll results: “The Obama campaign has been placing a great deal of emphasis on foreign policy and national security with the goal of building the candidate's credibility in these areas. But by doing so, he is priming voters to think about the very issues on which they prefer John McCain.” Although his overseas trip has made Obama look good “it has also reminded average voters that, when it comes to foreign policy, they trust Republicans more than Democrats and John McCain more than Barack Obama.”

The political analyst Joe Klein explains on his Swampland blog that the presentation of Obama’s tour may have been the problem. “The emerging conventional wisdom seems to be that the trip is a bit too grand, too...presumptuous and voters are wary of that,” says Klein. Quick-fix poll results weren’t the point, says Josh Marshall on Talking Points Memo. “The key was banking a solid trip abroad that he'll be able to refer back to (mostly implicitly, sometimes explicitly) during the tough weeks ahead in the fall.”

FIRST POSTED JULY 25, 2008