Mark Halperin's three things to watch for in presidential politics for Thursday, July 24:
1) Barack Obama's speech in Berlin is the big thing to watch today. The doors open at the Victory Column around 10:00am ET, and Obama is set to deliver his speech on U.S.-European relations at around 1:15 pm ET. Watch to see if this is just an interesting event, a big event, or a seismic event in shaping the campaign--and maybe even history.
2) Keep an eye on how Obama gets treated by the press corps today. This speech will be a big spectacle. It is one of the bigger events on the trip, and it's already gotten a lot of great coverage. Watch to see if the press corps can design a way to cover this in context, that doesn't seem to be just a campaign advertisement for Barack Obama.
3) Watch to see how the McCain campaign reacts to the speech. The Arizonan Senator is slated to join Lance Armstrong for a health care town hall meeting at the LIVESTRONG Summit in Columbus, Ohio Thursday evening. Following the event, the two will hold joint a presser. This week has not been a good week for John McCain. His campaign has gotten a lot of bad reviews for the photo ops they've put the Senator in recently. Watch to see how the campaign responds to today's speech, and whether they try to spring any big news or big events today to take some of the edge off Obama's big speech.
The Political Schedule
Tuesday, December 8
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- 1:15 pm
- President Obama and Vice President Biden meet with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in the Oval Office
