Trip did not move voters toward Obama

Rasmussen Reports:

Voters view Barack Obama’s highly publicized trip to Europe and the Middle East last week as a complete wash from a political standpoint, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey.

Twenty-four percent (24%) of voters say the trip makes them more likely to vote for the Democratic candidate, while virtually the same number (23%) say it makes them less likely to vote for him. This is consistent with data from the Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll which shows that Obama’s brief Berlin bounce has vanished and there has been little change in the race following the trip.

Over half (52%) say the trip – despite saturation media coverage including one-on-one interviews with the anchors for the three major television networks – will have no impact on their votes at all. (The idea that the media is trying to help Obama win in November has grown by five percentage points over the past month).

Interestingly, while Democrats and Republicans responded along partisan lines to Obama’s trip, unaffiliated voters are more negative than positive about it. Among unaffiliateds, 30% say the trip makes them less likely to vote for Obama, while 23% say it will make them more likely to do so. The rest say it will have no impact on their vote.

While 25% of all voters say the trip makes Obama more qualified to be president, 57% disagree. This is a slight improvement over how voters responded to the first leg of Obama’s trip -- visits to Afghanistan and Iraq where he conferred with U.S. military commanders. In that survey, 63% of Americans said the trip did not make him any more qualified to be president. Less than a third (32%) believed Obama would learn from his trip to Iraq.

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Despite complaints by John McCain’s campaign about the media coverage of the trip, it appears it did not do the political damage to him that the Republican candidate feared.

The latest Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll; He now attracts 45% of the vote while McCain earns 43%. When "leaners" are included, it’s Obama 48% and McCain 46%. This is roughly where the race stood prior to the trip.

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Obama appears to have the bounce of a mud ball. Elaborate orchestration is achieving minimal results. I think he is going to have a tough time getting the unaffiliated voters.