John McCain's no-nonsense style had made him a darling of the media, but only a gaggle of hacks followed the Republican hopeful on his recent foreign trips.
Contrast that with the attention the US media is about to lavish on Barack Obama's whirlwind tour to Europe, Iraq and Afghanistan next week. All three main US TV anchors are to interview the Democratic presidential candidate at various stages of the trip.
In Berlin, Obama - a politician with the appeal of a rock star - can expect thousands to turn out to hear him in an echo of John Kennedy's famous 1963 "Ich bin ein Berliner" speech at the Brandenburg gate.
The Times gets caught up in the hype, devoting a double page spread to next week's extravaganza, which takes in Europe, Iraq and Afghanistan. Rather breathlessly, the paper calls this weekend's visit a "feverishly anticipated audition on the world stage that includes the unprecedented spectacle of an American presidential candidate addressing a huge crowd in a foreign city".
The Times goes on to warn, however, that being loved by Europeans can be a political
handicap back home; Republicans ridiculed John Kerry, who lost to Bush in 2004, for looking French.
Philip Stephens in the Financial Times says Germany is the right place to call for a renewal of US-European ties to nip in the bud growing sentiment in Germany that it should cuddle up to the Kremlin instead of looking westwards. But Stephens makes a plea for Obama to tell his aides not to talk about "tough love".
As Obama prepares for his trip, the New York Times reports that he relies on a close-knit group of aides on foreign policy backed by a "huge 300-person foreign policy campaign bureaucracy, organised like a mini-state department".
The media fuss has left the McCain camp in a quandary, the International Herald Tribune reports. It says the Republicans seem unable to decide whether Obama's visit to Iraq "is worthy of praise or an opportunity for payback for Obama's unrelenting criticism of their own policy". An AP headline sums up the surliness in the McCain camp at all the media attention Obama will get next week: McCain says he's glad Obama is going to Iraq, sort of.
Suzanne Fields at Townhall.com reminds her American readers that while Europeans might take a shine to Obama big time, "they still do not vote in our elections. Not yet." Obama will need no reminding that despite the excitement he generates around the world and among his own supporters, the polls show he leads McCain by only a few points. In other words, big crowds do not necessarily translate into votes.
This is an extended extract from the Wrap, our daily digest of the papers
