The 2008 U.S. Presidential Candidates Travel Scorecard
Speaker's Corner: What travel guide best suits John McCain? Where's Hillary Clinton's dream destination? Julia Ross examines how the White House contenders stack up as global travelers.
01.01.08 | 8:14 AM ET
In the interest of civic discourse, we hereby offer World Hum’s 2008 presidential candidate scorecard—a pocket guide to each candidate’s global travel profile, if you will. After rigorous analysis of the candidates’ websites and a few Google searches, we’ve given the contenders a travel compatibility score, measuring—on a scale of 1 to 5 Air Force Ones—not only how widely they have traveled but how well they practice the kind of travel we embrace at World Hum. Are they curious about the world beyond U.S. borders? And how likely are they to dive into the local culture? Before you punch the ballot, imagine chatting up your preferred candidate along the Inca Trail. Then go with your gut.
DemocratsJoe Biden
Passport Analysis: There’s nothing like dodging Janjaweed raids to liven up a road trip. Iraq, Afghanistan, Darfur, the Balkans—three decades on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee have seen Biden land in the world’s hottest conflict zones. Our go-to guy for places to avoid—we’re sure he’s got strong opinions on Burma—but not the ideal source for where to find the best tapas in Madrid.
Preferred Travel Guide: The World’s Most Dangerous Places by Robert Young Pelton
Dream Destination: The so-called Axis of Evil: Iran, Iraq, North Korea
World Hum Travel Compatibility Score (1 to 5 Air Force Ones):
Hillary Rodham Clinton
Passport Analysis: Call it the First Lady bounce. Clinton is the only candidate to actually quantify countries visited on her Web site—a whopping 80 nations, many while President Bill was in the White House. She’s bonded with women in Beijing and rallied the troops in Iraq, but, we wonder, does the dedicated policy wonk ever wander off the listening tour to get her Tevas muddy?
Preferred Travel Guide: CIA World Factbook
Dream Destination: Davos, Switzerland
World Hum Travel Compatibility Score:
Chris Dodd
Passport Analysis: Dónde está el senador? If he’s on travel duty, most likely somewhere south of the border. Dodd’s Peace Corps years in the Dominican Republic left him with fluent Spanish and a lifelong affinity for Latin America. After years of leading Congressional delegations from Managua to Mexico City, we’re sure he can hook us up with some excellent carnitas.
Preferred Travel Guide: Lonely Planet’s Central America on a Shoestring
Dream Destination: Yucatan Peninsula
World Hum Travel Compatibility Score:
John Edwards
Passport Analysis: We found fleeting references to a humanitarian mission in Uganda, but let’s face it: The ex-senator would take a down-home barbecue joint over the Champs Elysees in a North Carolina minute. We see Edwards as a volunteer vacation kind of guy, happy clearing brush on the Appalachian Trail. Still, we’d like to know how his populist stump speech would play in a Chinese factory town.
Preferred Travel Guide: AAA North America Road Atlas
Dream Destination: New Orleans, post-Katrina
World Hum Travel Compatibility Score:
Mike Gravel
Passport Analysis: The son of French Canadian immigrants and a longtime senator from Alaska, Gravel knows points north. He’s also done time on the Continent, as an Army counterintelligence officer in Germany and France. We’re sure he’s got some great war stories, but we’d really like to get his take on Chris McCandless’s “Into the Wild” quest and where best to catch the Northern Lights.
Preferred Travel Guide: Wild Men, Wild Alaska: Finding What Lies Beyond the Limits by Rocky McElveen
Dream Destination: Icebreaking in the Northwest Passage
World Hum Travel Compatibility Score:
Dennis Kucinich
Passport Analysis: We suspect the meditation-practicing, UFO-spotting congressman is undergoing a travel conversion thanks to his new wife Elizabeth. She’s a Brit who claims to have worked on humanitarian projects on five continents, including a stint at one of Mother Teresa’s charities in India. The unlikely pair—there’s a 30-year age difference between them—has already visited Britain and the Middle East. Here’s to travel for the love-struck.
Preferred Travel Guide: Travel Yoga: Stretches for Planes, Trains, Automobiles, and More! by Darrin Zeer
Dream Destination: A day at the Taj Mahal, then on to the ashram
World Hum Travel Compatibility Score:
Barack Obama
Passport Analysis: Raised in Hawaii and Indonesia, son of an American mother and Kenyan father, Obama has multi-culti street cred that’s hard to beat. And he gets extra credit for penning a travel memoir, “Dreams from My Father,” chronicling the senator’s first visit to Kenya, where he’s claimed as a native son. This is the guy we’d like to go overland with from Capetown to Cairo.
Preferred Travel Guide: Dark Star Safari by Paul Theroux
Dream Destination: Masai Mara, with the kids
World Hum Travel Compatibility Score:
Bill Richardson
Passport Analysis: This Mexico City-raised candidate takes his travel shaken, not stirred. As U.N. ambassador, Richardson brokered hostage negotiations in North Korea, Iraq and Sudan, and has led diplomatic missions to Congo and Darfur. He’s the only presidential hopeful whose Web site specifically credits travel for shaping his political views; for that, we’d like to buy him a few Negra Modelos after hours.
Preferred Travel Guide: Baghdad Without A Map by Tony Horwitz
Dream Destination: Kashmir, Cyprus, any disputed border
World Hum Travel Compatibility Score:
Republicans
Rudy Giuliani
Passport Analysis: He knows the five boroughs like the back of his hand, but as far as we can tell, Giuliani’s travel bona fides are scant. He’s been to the UK a couple times, once to be knighted by the Queen and recently to meet with Margaret Thatcher. But we get the feeling his worldview hews to the old New Yorker cover illustration: beyond the Hudson, it’s nothing but cacti and tumbleweeds.
Preferred Travel Guide: New York City subway map
Dream Destination: Wherever the Yankees happen to be playing
World Hum Travel Compatibility Score:
Mike Huckabee
Passport Analysis: The former Arkansas governor and Baptist minister touts his extensive travel to the Middle East over 35 years, including nine trips to Israel. Who knew? If he fails to get the nomination, he’s got a bright future as a Holy Land tour guide.
Preferred Travel Guide: Walking the Bible by Bruce Feiler
Dream Destination: The road to Damascus
World Hum Travel Compatibility Score:
Duncan Hunter
Passport Analysis: Hunter’s a Vietnam vet, so we know he’s crossed the international dateline. But he’s not big on crossing borders, at least sans papers: He’s made building fences along the U.S.-Mexico border a central feature of his political identity.
Preferred Travel Guide: Coyotes: A Journey Through the Secret World of America’s Illegal Aliens by Ted Conover
Dream Destination: Arizona/Mexico Border Patrol post
World Hum Travel Compatibility Score:
Alan Keyes
Passport Analysis: Turns out the devoutly Christian, Ph.D.-holding former talk radio host has an impressive global footprint. An Army brat, Keyes lived in Italy as a kid, studied in Paris as a college student, then entered the Foreign Service. He met his wife while serving as a desk officer in Bombay—a travel coup unequalled by anyone else on the ballot.
Preferred Travel Guide: Soundwalk: St. Germain des Pres narrated by Helene Sevaux and Asa Mader
Dream Destination: “Promised Land” tour: Egypt, Jordan and Israel
World Hum Travel Compatibility Score:
John McCain
Passport Analysis: The original adventure traveler politico. It wasn’t exactly hiking with the hill tribes, but five and a half years at the Hanoi Hilton ought to count for something. McCain gets our “hardship post” award for longest time in residence abroad. And extra points for parachuting in.
Preferred Travel Guide: Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook by Joshua Piven and David Borgenicht
Dream Destination: Aboard the USS Nimitz, somewhere in the Persian Gulf
World Hum Travel Compatibility Score:
Ron Paul
Passport Analysis: A travel cipher. No trace of wanderlust in the bio of this physician-turned-Internet sensation, but his early stint as an Air Force surgeon holds intriguing possibilities. We’ll give him partial credit for virtual reach; we hear Ron Paul meet-up groups are forming worldwide.
Preferred Travel Guide: The Pocket Doctor: A Passport to Healthy Travel by Stephen Bezruchka
Dream Destination: Live-and-let-live West Texas
World Hum Travel Compatibility Score:
Mitt Romney
Passport Analysis: As a Mormon youth, Romney spent two years converting souls in the teeming streets of…Paris. Later, his role as CEO of the Salt Lake City Olympic Games gave him lifetime entrée to ski jumps from Turin to Nagano. Our pick for most likely to be identified as an American abroad.
Preferred Travel Guide: Rick Steves’ Best of Europe
Dream Destination: Alpe d’Huez for the Tour de France
World Hum Travel Compatibility Score:
Fred Thompson
Passport Analysis: The Tennessee-bred former senator notched recent trips to Israel and the UK but is more likely to be spotted on the red eye from LAX to Washington-Dulles. Perhaps he scratches the travel itch through film and television roles. We think a “Law & Order Moscow” shoot is in order.
Preferred Travel Guide: Nashville “Homes of the Country Stars” map
Dream Destination: Hollywood Walk of Fame
World Hum Travel Compatibility Score:
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Jessica 01.01.08 | 7:28 PM ET
This is fantastic! I think travel is a very good criteria for judging candidates - world view is important. Great article!
Sharon 01.02.08 | 10:01 AM ET
I thought this was really funny and original, and actually quite insightful! I particularly like the travel books paired with the candidates.
Billiga Flyg 01.03.08 | 2:06 AM ET
It is very interesting to know the information about U.S. President and his tour details. The travel scorecard Which involve his eating habits,hobbies and the places visited by him.Thanks for providing such a great information.
Cassandra Wright 01.03.08 | 8:59 AM ET
I appreciate the insight given by this travel scorepad. It offers some insight we don’t get on the sparce news reports.
Carol Thompson 01.03.08 | 3:54 PM ET
Very interesting. I doubt they realize that they’re telling on themselves with this bit of unconscious information.
Yes, the president would be required to know his world…
Mazorodze Pius Hove 01.04.08 | 3:09 PM ET
Travel broadens the mind, so we now know who has the edge over others.Your article is delightfully entertaining and hilariously educative.
Eva Holland 01.04.08 | 11:51 PM ET
Thanks for this, Julia.
Just when I thought I couldn’t stomach even one more story about the US presidential race (and this with 11 months to go! I obviously haven’t been pacing myself), I come across this totally original and entertaining take on the whole thing.
Slate.com, take note. Please.
Marshall 01.06.08 | 10:06 AM ET
What a ridiculous, slanted way of comparing candidates. I’m sure it was mostly meant to be funny, but I didn’t find it to be so. Some of the evaluations were totally off base, considering the candidate’s travels.
Aggie 01.16.08 | 2:01 PM ET
I think its great the that Hillary Clinton has traveled to all theses destinations in support of different matters.
RC Jorgensen 01.18.08 | 11:27 PM ET
http://www.rcjorgensen.com Vote 3rd party this time for rel change. I have traveled to Europe a couple of times, my father served 30 years in the USAF so I have had my share of Domestic move too. Check out my political courage test on http://www.votesmart.org Think before yo vote!
God Bless America!
John M. Edwards 01.26.08 | 5:42 PM ET
Hi Julia:
This is a very clever and entertaining piece, which is also responsible for swaying my election vote. I’m a big fan of insider blogging. I’ve already made my vote.
Because of a chance similarity in our names and hereditary facial structure, I support John Edwards for president.
A quick but careful reading and interpretation of Nostradamus’s predictions, counting the number of letters in the lines of a secret (unnamed) passage, came up with the cabalistic anagram: “Sdrawde.” Which suggests that someone named “Edwards” is supposed to win.
If the handsome Centrist North Carolina senator doesn’t win (boy, does he look lit up on the campaign trail!), then pick me in a write-in ballot instead.
Despite the impressive travel careers of Hillary and Obama, a feel-good vote for them would make the USA look very open-minded and PC (and make history), we would ultimately get pushed around on the world opinion roundtable. We would also look like the ultimate victim. (I can see the inevitable jokes already about “Obama bin Laden.”) I’d rather count a million chads than be stuck with another eight years of bad luck.
Just kidding, of course.
Regards, John Edwards
Ashton Berry Gatlin JR. 08.06.08 | 3:56 AM ET
I agree on its Time for Change and an Independant would definatly be a change I would Love to see Robert Coleman Jorgensen Have a debate with George W. Bush But after Bush and Chany are Indited for war crimes….RCJorgensen Committie for Justice Salemburg, North Carloina The Home of the North Carolina Justice Academy…..........Ashton B. Gatlin Elect Robert Coleman Jorgensen to file and Prosecute George W Bush and Chaney and Make them Apoligize to the Dixie Chics Band for they hit the nail on the Bush and Chaney head