If you didn’t know otherwise, you might have believed it was President Obama taking his first trip abroad last week, meeting with dozens of foreign and military officials and holding joint news conferences with state leaders.

“It was a grand-slam trip,” said Chris Kofinis, who served as communications director for John Edwards’ campaign. “[Barack Obama] hit all the right notes, he showed he had the ability to stand with diplomats and talk about the most difficult foreign policy issues facing the country. By every standard, this trip was a resounding success.”

But not everyone was raving about Obama’s performance.

Kevin Madden, former spokesman for Republican Mitt Romney’s campaign, said Obama’s trip left him vulnerable to attacks by Republican John McCain.

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“The substance of the trip provided McCain with an opening, with Obama’s unwillingness to accept the success of the surge in Iraq and his continued changing of positions on whether he would unconditionally meet with the leader of Iran,” Madden said. “The McCain campaign is going to seize on that and hammer on those inconsistencies to expose his lack of preparedness to be president.”

University of New Hampshire political scientist Dante Scala, though, said it was all about the visuals: “This trip was partly about show and getting Obama out there and showing he was up to the task.”

Despite his popularity in Europe and positive media coverage at home, the trip did not immediately stimulate big gains in the polls for Obama among American voters.

A Gallup Poll taken Thursday, the day of Obama’s Berlin speech, showed the Illinois senator with a six-point lead over McCain, up from a three-point lead earlier in the week, but tied with a poll taken July 20.

Gallup Managing Editor Frank Newport said fluctuation in Obama’s late-July poll numbers, “suggests caution in assuming that the trip will have any lasting impact on the structure of the race.”

sferrechio@dcexaminer.com