The Note: Bonjour, Barack

July 25, 2008 -- While Sen. Barack Obama was busy winning the image battle during his foreign trip (and Sen. John McCain was barely in the same game) three things happened (and one thing just might be about to):

1. The Obama bump for this much-hyped week was, at best, slow to swell.

2. Obama seemed to whiff on a symbol.

3. Obama went to Berlin and called out to the world -- though not necessarily anyone who can vote for him.

(And once he's back stateside, McCain can and very well might move quickly to find a way back into the discussion; who winds up landing the first veepstakes punch?)

As Obama, D-Ill., wraps up his foreign trip with stops in Paris Friday and London Saturday, the narrative is set to move on with him. For all the good he did his campaign this week -- the gold-plated visuals, the astounding crowd he drew in Berlin, the shift on the politics of the surge and the war -- no bounce will mean fresh doubts, in a race that remains closer than it should be.

We may have here the tale of two elections: One that's playing out among those who spend too much time analyzing this stuff, and one that's playing out among those actual real-life voters who are enjoying their summers (or, depending on economic circumstances, not so much).

Of the first: "In one of the most telling and ironic weeks of the presidential campaign, Democrat Barack Obama accepted Republican John McCain's dare and went to Iraq -- and far beyond, a foreign expedition of carefully staged photo opportunities that left the Arizona senator both at home and on the defensive," per the AP wrap.

Of the second: "The presidential race is tightening in four key battleground states, with Republican John McCain holding an advantage among white male voters and Democrat Barack Obama keeping his lead among the youngest voters, according to a new Quinnipiac University poll," Sara Murray writes in The Wall Street Journal.

"Sen. Obama leads slightly in Michigan and by double-digits in Wisconsin, but by smaller margins than about one month ago. The two candidates are running statistically even in Colorado and Minnesota, compared to the respective five-point and seven-point lead Sen. Obama had in June."

"Not so fast, Obama Nation," Todd Spangler writes in the Detroit Free Press.

"The trip on its own terms was a clean success -- you just cannot take that away from him," ABC's George Stephanopoulos reported on "Good Morning America" Friday. "We don't know yet what kind of impact it's had on voters -- there hasn't been any good test of that yet."

Time for Obama to take a "hard turn" toward the economy next week, Stephanopoulos said.

What did Obama not do this week?

The Columbus Dispatch's front page has McCain looking presidential, at a podium -- and the back of Obama's head.

"While the Democrat was away, the Republican came to play in battleground Ohio," writes Jim Provance of the Toledo Blade.

As for what he did do: "Sen. Barack Obama summoned the world to the cause of his presidential campaign on Thursday. But he won't need the world to win the still-tight election," per ABC News. "For all the powerful visuals of Obama's overseas trip -- shooting hoops with troops, riding a helicopter with Gen. David Petraeus, being received as a world leader from Jordan to Germany -- it's not clear that Obama made up further ground Thursday in answering the most significant concerns about his candidacy."

"Fresh polls show that he has been unable to convert weeks of extensive media coverage into a widened lead. And some prominent Democrats whose support could boost his campaign are still not enthusiastic about his candidacy," Peter Nicholas writes in the Los Angeles Times. "Republicans are moving to exploit this vulnerability, trying to encourage unease among voters by building the impression that Obama's overseas trip and other actions show he has a sense of entitlement that suggests he believes the White House is already his."

Adds Nicholas: "Obama also faces discontent from some of Hillary Rodham Clinton's most ardent supporters, who are put off by what they describe as a campaign marked by hubris and a style dedicated to televised extravaganzas. Susie Tompkins Buell, a major Clinton fundraiser, said: 'The Clinton supporters that I know are bothered by these rock-star events. These spectacles are more about the candidate than they are about the party and the issues that we care about.' "

"The golden rhetoric impresses less, the evasion of hard choices strikes one more," writes a thoroughly soured David Brooks, in his New York Times column. "Obama has benefited from a week of good images. But substantively, optimism without reality isn't eloquence. It's just Disney." (Not that there's anything wrong with that.)

He might have fueled an emerging GOP argument: "Obama's campaign outdid itself on stagecraft," Lynn Sweet writes in the Chicago Sun-Times. "Presumptuous or not, the campaign spared no detail -- providing giant cranes for camera crews to get crowd shots -- to capture images intended to present Obama on a world stage as he has never been seen before."

There's been enough to earn a "down arrow" the New York Daily News' Josh Greenman: "A great man said: self-confidence is the first requisite to great undertakings. A greater man said: pride goes before the fall. A few times this week, Obama could be heard imagining himself as a second-term President. Easy, there."

He leaves Germany with what just might qualify as a gaffe: Obama canceled a planned visit with wounded US troops in Germany, yet managed to work in a workout at the Ritz-Carlton.

"The excuse the Barack Obama camp has come up with for not visiting the troops in Germany ranks up there with 'The German Shepherd ate my homework,' " Jennifer Rubin writes for Commentary.

After some initial mixed messaging, the Obama campaign puts it on the Pentagon: Defense officials "viewed this as a campaign event and therefore they said he should not come," David Axelrod tells the Chicago Sun-Times' Lynn Sweet.

And a copy of this non-political speech was quickly sent to supporters in an e-mail that included a big red "DONATE" button. "This is certainly going to be used as ammunition for those critics who wondered about the true purpose of this 'non political' trip," ABC's Jake Tapper reports.

"The campaign, which has raised more money through the internet than any other campaign in world history, says the purpose of this email, the 'DONATE' button notwithstanding, was for folks to see the speech and share it with their friends," writes Tapper.

McCain may be moving faster than anticipated to play the last big card he holds: "Two top aides to the presumptive Republican nominee said the decision is likely to be announced after Obama returns from Europe on Sunday and before the Beijing Olympics begin Aug. 8," Michael Shear writes in The Washington Post. "They said the campaign fears that unanticipated events coming out of China -- whether in the form of athletic accomplishments or human rights protests -- could deflect attention from the announcement if it were made during the Games."