WASHINGTON: Barack Obama and John McCain are taking international detours from the White House trail, with risk-and-reward missions designed to polish commander-in-chief resumes four months from election day.
Both men hope their statesmanlike poses in Europe and the Middle East will impress voters back home and score points in a tussle over sharply divergent foreign policy visions.
But snares lie in wait -- a policy gaffe overseas by Obama for instance would detonate new claims that as only first-term senator, he lacks the grounding and gravitas to serve as a wartime president.
Both men face a balancing act in their presidential auditions: they must win the trust of voters concerned with national security, but not seem disconnected from domestic issues, and economic pain faced by many Americans.
Democratic presumptive nominee Obama has announced plans to travel this month to dominant European powers Germany, Britain and France, and will make his debut in the Middle East in Israel and Jordan.
He will travel to Iraq and Afghanistan under a tight security blanket, under pressure to modify his plan to begin an immediate pullout from Iraq in the light of security gains forged by last year's escalation policy.
Republican McCain, who journeyed to Europe and the Middle East earlier this year, is using a current trip to Colombia and Mexico to hammer Obama on trade and foreign policy, after lashing out at him in Canada a few weeks ago.
In Europe especially, Obama is certain of a warm welcome, with polls showing huge support for his vow to overhaul US foreign policy and mend transatlantic ties strained during the Bush administration.
"He will have his hand held as much as possible by the Europeans," said Justin Logan, a foreign policy scholar at the Cato Institute, noting that Obama shares continental concerns on issues like global warming.
"There is every reason to believe a lot of Europeans would welcome an Obama presidency ... there also is a thirst for a contemplative US president.
"I think Obama does a good job of cutting that figure, that will be well received in Europe and could reflect back (to America) making him look statesmanlike."
Some strategists believe Obama's trip will have to be carefully managed, to squelch any European "Obama-mania" which could backfire in the US heartland.
He must also be careful not to be seen as taking a premature victory lap, with an election showdown with McCain still months away.
"There is enormous enthusiasm for Obama throughout Europe," said Stephen Flanagan, a former high-ranking State Department official, now senior vice president at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
"Part of this might be an effort to manage expectations over there."
Obama, seeking to ease suspicion of his policies among some Jewish voters, will seek to use a visit to Israel to pose as a staunch friend of the Jewish state -- despite his offer to hold direct talks with Iranian leaders.
In Jordan, he will likely face pressure to commit to a more involved US role in mediating the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
McCain, positioning himself as a veteran national security hand, has already experienced the perils of international campaign trail.
While in Jordan, McCain said Tehran was training Al-Qaeda members, in a slip-up which sparked ridicule among Democrats and undercut his core campaign message of experience.
Washington has accused Shiite-majority Iran of training and arming Shiite extremists, but never made the link with Al-Qaeda in Iraq -- a Sunni group,
McCain flew to Colombia on Tuesday, for talks with President Alvaro Uribe before heading to Mexico on Thursday to meet President Felipe Calderon.
The trip was demonstrate his ease with detailed foreign policy questions, and to hammer away at what he sees as Obama's protectionist instincts on trade.
"The calculation is that it will earn him support from the Latino community," said Michael Shifter, vice president of Inter-American Dialogue, a Washington think tank on western hemisphere affairs.
"I'm not sure that's true," Shifter told AFP, speaking in Spanish.
McCain will try "to show that he has a strong advantage over Obama on national security issues and that Democrats are a weak party that has abandoned Latin America. And the logic is that this could yield electoral fruit."
