Cast of hundreds advises Obama on foreign policy

International Herald Tribune: Cast of hundreds advises Obama on foreign policy
By Elisabeth Bumiller
Published: July 18, 2008

WASHINGTON: Every day around 8 a.m., foreign policy aides at Senator Barack Obama's Chicago campaign headquarters send him two e-mails: a briefing on major world developments over the previous 24 hours and a set of questions, accompanied by suggested answers, that the candidate is likely to be asked about international relations during the day.

One recent Q. & A. asked, for example, whether Obama supported the decision by Iraq's prime minister, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, to include a timetable for American troop withdrawal in any new security agreements with the United States. The answer, provided to Obama with bullet points, was yes — or "a genuine opportunity," as he put it in a speech on Iraq this week.

Behind the e-mail messages is a tight-knit group of aides supported by a huge 300-person foreign policy campaign bureaucracy, organized like a mini State Department, to assist a candidate whose limited national security experience remains a concern to many voters.

"It is unwieldy, no question," said Denis McDonough, 38, Obama's top foreign policy aide, speaking of an infrastructure that has been divided into 20 teams based on regions and issues, and that has recently absorbed, with some tensions, the top foreign policy advisers from Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton's presidential campaign. "But an administration is unwieldy, too. We also know that it's messier when you don't get as much information as you can."

The group is on the spot this week as Obama is planning to make his first overseas foray as the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, with voters at home and leaders abroad watching closely to see how he handles himself on the global stage.

Unlike George W. Bush, who entered the presidential race in 2000 with scant exposure to national security issues, Obama has served since his election to the Senate in 2004 on the Foreign Relations Committee and has had a running tutorial from aides steeped in the issues. His campaign says that he is well prepared and that he often alters and expands on the talking points provided to him by his foreign policy advisers....

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But what about economics? That might be an issue right now.

Memo to Barack: Austin Goolsbee doesn't cut it.

Policy all ties in with Economics. No Fear..Team Obama has a handle on it.

But I've worked a lot of campaigns and I don't see it yet. He may get a handle on economics but he's not there yet - at least not as far as I can see.

Honestly, how cool is that?

was headlined "Cast of 300 advises Obama on foreign policy" and my first thought was