Advisers Deciding Obama Trip Plans

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Surrogates Will Take On Travel Duties as President Sticks Close to Home in Early Days
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/28/AR2009012803306.html?wprss=rss_world%2Feurope


Now that President Obama has spent a full week settling into the White House, his advisers have a new task: deciding when to send him back out into the wider world.

Obama, who has not gone beyond a four-mile radius from the White House since his swearing-in, may have more competing claims on his travel time than any new president in recent memory, with economically depressed swaths of the country clamoring for his attention, foreign leaders eager to establish personal ties, and a campaign promise to visit a Muslim country within his first 100 days in office hanging over his head.

Advisers said this week that Obama is likely to stay close to his new home for the foreseeable future. He has not yet spent a weekend at Camp David, though he and his family may do so soon. He also has not announced the dates of any specific domestic or international trips apart from a visit to Canada on Feb. 19 announced yesterday, a longstanding tradition for new presidents.

Beyond that, Obama will be delegating a heavier-than-expected share of the travel duties to his most prominent surrogates, including Vice President Biden, advisers said. On Tuesday, officials announced that Biden will make his first foreign trip since taking office, traveling to a key international security conference in Munich on Feb. 6, a gathering traditionally attended by the defense secretary. The appearance instead by Biden, who will travel with national security adviser James L. Jones and Gen. David H. Petraeus, head of the U.S. Central Command, signals the importance that Obama places on the event, officials said. (Past vice presidents have stayed local far longer; even the globetrotting George H.W. Bush did not travel abroad until near the end of June during his first term as vice president, in 1981.)


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"It's fairly self-evident the president's going to have to focus on the economic crisis. He said it was his first priority and it will continue to be," a White House official said. "It doesn't mean he won't be doing foreign policy, or traveling domestically. It just means the economy will come first."

[firedupdem]

1. The economy does have to come first and he's been kicking

butt since he got there. I believe there were meetings even last Saturday. Shrub would be on vacation by now.

Whenever he does go to Camp David or home to Chicago for the weekend they will make a huge stink about it. It will be nonstop news coverage about him chilling while the country burns.

[Hippo_Tron]

2. Makes sense given that Obama wants to be a hands on President

Presidential travel is symbolically important but it doesn't get a whole lot of real work done. Obama can run the country from Air Force One but he can do it more hands on from the White House. Once he's gotten some work done I think he'll be more inclined to travel.

[cooolandrew]

3. I'm very glad he is utlizing Biden's skills as he can be of great help>

in bringing the world together.