Published: July 22, 2008 10:31 pm            

DUVALL: Obama's big question

There are still three months to go in the 2008 presidential campaign, but there’s really only one question left to be answered before the whole thing is decided: Is Barack Obama fit to be commander-in-chief?

If the answer is yes, he’ll be our next president. If the answer is no, John McCain will win by default.

It’s the central question of the campaign and the reason why, despite so much anxiety over a faltering economy, foreign policy has been the central battleground issue. The conventional logic holds that military expertise is McCain’s sole advantage over Obama. The funny thing is, Obama doesn’t even need to best McCain on the issue, just prove that he’s got the chops to sit at the table and all that talk about flag pins and his middle name will be a distant memory.

That’s what makes Obama’s trip overseas such a bigger news event than a recent trip by John McCain. The major news networks have caught flack for hyping the trip and offering around-the-clock coverage scrutinizing every little detail.

If the trip goes well and Obama can eat away at the notion he’s too inexperienced to lead a nation in a time of war, expect to see his polling numbers on issues like terrorism and Iraq start to move up. With that, his horse race number — which has since the end of the primaries held steady at a 5-point lead over McCain — start to separate.

Obama is likely to make his vice presidential selection soon after his return, seeking maximum impact before the Olympics take center stage in August. Assuming his pick isn’t of a Thomas Eagleton bent, it’ll add to the momentum. From there it’s off to Mile High Stadium in Denver for what promises to be the largest-ever nomination acceptance speech in American political history. The visual alone of Obama speaking to an 80,000-seat outdoor venue filled with supporters will give him tremendous momentum as the candidates turn down the stretch.

Of course, all of this is predicated on a single question: Is he fit to lead?

I don’t have that answer. But like most Americans, I assume I’ll know it when I see it.

On the topic of Iraq, Obama got a well-timed boost from Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who all but endorsed the Obama plan for a timed withdrawal of troops to be completed sometime in 2010. Of course, Maliki retracted the statement made in a German newspaper after some arm-twisting by the Bush Administration, but his position has been clear: Thanks, we’ll take it from here.

And with that, a large piece of the commander-in-chief puzzle has fallen into place. It will be next to impossible for John McCain to continue making the argument for extending the Iraq war indefinitely when an overwhelming number of Americans and the Iraqi leader both say it’s time for our troops to leave.

Obama has an arrow in his quiver on the withdrawal front, too. In Basra, the Iraqi city that the British had been tasked with overseeing, the decision by a new British prime minister to pull troops out didn’t result in mass chaos. In fact, it was the opposite. Iraq’s military was forced to step up — they did — and now the city is largely policed by local forces with no disastrous consequences.

Economic issues seem so squarely in Obama’s corner after a terrible record by the Bush Administration that I can’t see how McCain makes any headway there. If that’s the case, his lone hope is to win on a national security platform. If Obama can blunt that advantage, it could be over as soon as he accepts the nomination in Denver.

        

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