July 24 (Bloomberg) -- This is the first election in memory when a small crowd is better than a large one, a passionate crowd inferior to a bored one, where drawing a million people in Berlin is less likely to be compared with Ronald Reagan or John F. Kennedy but to Hitler Youth chanting ``Sieg heil!''

Following Hillary Clinton's successful tack, Senator John McCain has picked up the theme that there's something sinister in Barack Obama's appeal. Some in the media are buying it. All of us are repeating it. To give a rousing speech is to appeal to our basest instincts, an adoring crowd abroad the kiss of death. For all we know, there might be socialists or soccer hooligans among them. For sure, they're foreigners.

By this standard, less -- or rather fewer -- is more. Dare to be boring in front of a monument that no one has seen before or will again. Assemble a sparse, tepid audience. Deflate it.

I fell into the trap myself saying on TV that the more admiration Obama elicits on his trip to the Middle East and Europe, the less voters in Kansas will trust him. Then I got a hold of myself. For eight years, the country has accommodated itself to a president the rest of the world reviles. Surely this hasn't become a requirement for the office. The Democrats are nominating someone the Earth's 6.7 billion inhabitants find likeable. That's a bad thing?

In the schools of cowboy diplomacy, it is. An admired commander-in-chief is bound to be a girlie man, soft on Old Europe and its crypto-socialist states. How will we know we are leading if we don't force everyone else to follow and go it alone if they don't?

Gaffe-Free

Amid the potential for disaster, Obama committed no gaffes nor caused an international incident. Heads of state treated him like a head of state. Israel seemed happy with his assurances. Iraqis adopted his prescription for stability in their country, Afghanistan his view that their country, not Iraq, is the central front in the war on terror.

Much of the trip has played like the old CNN program ``Crossfire.'' First McCain goads Obama into a trip to Iraq, then protests that the press -- which he once called ``his base'' -- imposed a virtual blackout on his own campaign while giving Obama wall-to-wall coverage. To make his point, the campaign produced a video to the tune of Frankie Valli's ``Can't Take My Eyes Off You,'' showing various TV reporters gushing over Obama.

McCain's complaint yielded some play, not all of it helpful. CBS's Katie Couric tacked on a satellite interview with him to one with Obama from the Middle East in which McCain said, ``Obama would rather lose a war in order to win a political campaign.'' He gave the surge credit for protecting Sunni sheiks against insurgents when the so-called Anbar Awakening began well before additional troops were sent.

`Bomb, Bomb Iran'

On a morning talk show, McCain obliterated Iran, not by a reprise of his ``Bomb, Bomb Iran'' joke but by scrambling the map of the Middle East. He put out his first negative ad, widely panned for inaccuracies (other than the price at the gas pump), as he blamed the entire energy crisis on Obama after having said in speeches that it was ``30 years in the making.''

When coverage juxtaposed Obama arriving in Iraq and flying over Baghdad in a military helicopter, deep in conversation with General David Petraeus, McCain went deep into summer-resort mode to hang out with Bush 41 in a golf cart in Kennebunkport. Obama looked like Petraeus's bombardier, George H.W. Bush and McCain like extras in ``Cocoon.''

To create some drama, a ``very senior McCain aide'' suggested that syndicated columnist Robert Novak report that a vice-presidential announcement was likely this week. He did. When no announcement was forthcoming, Novak told Fox News that he was probably the victim of a ``ruse'' to inject some drama into McCain's campaign.

Look Up the Number

Trips abroad are hard even if you have Air Force One and the infrastructure of embassies around the world at your beck and call -- which Obama does not. The day before his trip, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice sent word that U.S. overseas missions should provide only minimal support. The Washington Times quoted the cable saying, ``If the campaign staff wants to rent a bus for press, tell them where they can rent a bus.'' The cable applies to both candidates, yet no such instructions were issued prior to earlier McCain trips.

So McCain walks through a market in Baghdad proclaiming it peaceful, accompanied by black helicopters overhead, 100 security men, and a bulletproof jacket. But Obama in a war zone should find his own transportation.

Pray of Rain

Perhaps the Bush administration is compensating for undercutting McCain by seeming to agree with Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki on Obama's 16-month plan for withdrawing troops. Bush wasn't that specific, but did propose a ``general time horizon.''

The terms of the debate may have permanently shifted from the success of the surge, which Obama won't acknowledge, to when to declare victory and leave. As Obama left Israel on the same red carpet they rolled out when he came in, the Berlin hurdle loomed. Get ready for the rock-star comparison to be trotted out, with all the trashing of hotel rooms and teenage swooning that conjures up. By the new measure, Obama should pray for rain and hope he doesn't outdraw Bruce Springsteen.

He would be better off politically if 40 people showed up and pelted him with fruit. America may have to be gradually eased back into being the most-admired country in the world.

(Margaret Carlson, author of ``Anyone Can Grow Up: How George Bush and I Made It to the White House'' and former White House correspondent for Time magazine, is a Bloomberg News columnist. The opinions expressed are her own.)

To contact the writer of this column: Margaret Carlson in Washington at mcarlson3@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: July 24, 2008 03:55 EDT