Politicians on vacation: the sun, the sea, the gaffes

Summertime getaways pose some risk

In 2004, Senator John F. Kerry's windsurfing provided his foes with a metaphor for what they termed his shifting with the winds. (Laura Rauch/ Associated Press/ File 2004)

Waves, wind, a beautiful island, crystalline skies: For you and me, the elements of a perfect vacation.

But as Barack Obama might recall as he heads to Hawaii for a vacation later this month, for the last Democratic presidential nominee, these have been the harbingers of political disaster.

If there had been steady rain that week in August 2004, perhaps Senator John F. Kerry would never have ventured into Nantucket Sound with his windsurfing board, thus depriving his Republican foes of the chance to make one of the most devastating ads of the campaign - a spot showing Kerry tacking back and forth as a narrator accused him of voting "whichever way the wind blows" on the Iraq war.

Vacations have provided some of the most enduring images of American presidents and presidential candidates: Ronald Reagan chopping wood on his Santa Barbara ranch, John F. Kennedy sailing off Hyannis Port, Dwight D. Eisenhower golfing at Augusta National. In an arena dominated by personality-stifling suits and cookie-cutter rallies, vacations are colorful departures from the everyday and a window into our leaders' hearts, showing us what they find beautiful and relaxing, the people and places they value most.

But a vacation is also a prime setting for a political fiasco, a kaleidoscope of dorky outfits, unplanned digressions, and luxurious backdrops that can look (always in hindsight) awfully inappropriate during times of economic hardship. For Kerry, what might have seemed like an impressively athletic activity for a man in late middle age morphed into the perfect visual metaphor for his opponents' case against him.

Vacations are "fraught with danger because the media covers them so aggressively, and there's nothing going on," said David Carney, former political director for President George H.W. Bush. "They always sound great in the conference room, but it's where the sandals meet the sand - the execution is always very difficult."

Both major presidential candidates this time have avoided vacation gaffes. When Obama went to Hawaii early last year just before announcing his presidential bid, People magazine published photos of him on the beach looking buff. His Republican rival, John McCain, prefers to relax at his ranch near Sedona, Ariz., a private enclave hidden from the prying eyes of the press.

Both men are planning some time off this month before their party conventions and the final, exhausting stretch to Election Day on Nov. 4. McCain is expected to spend weekends at home.

The presidential campaign trail is littered with vacation mishaps. Dayton Duncan, deputy press secretary to Walter Mondale, the Democratic nominee in 1984, and press secretary for Michael Dukakis, the party's nominee in 1988, said Mondale took time off after the Democratic convention to go fishing in northern Minnesota because he needed a break. Four years later, Duncan said, the Dukakis team decided Mondale's holiday had cost him valuable time. So Dukakis spent a working vacation in Boston doing low-key gubernatorial events.

"That was a huge mistake," he said. "Basically he was going and dedicating new tollbooths on the Mass. Turnpike, which hardly looked presidential."

In what became a symbol of his poll-driven presidency, in 1995 and 1996 President Clinton famously replaced his beloved annual sojourn to Martha's Vineyard with a trip to another tourist mecca, Jackson, Wyo., after his pollster, Dick Morris, insisted swing voters prefer hiking, according to Morris's memoir, "Behind the Oval Office." The president, Morris wrote, unhappily obliged, though he spent as much time as possible on the golf course.

And in 1992, President George H. W. Bush, who at one point tried to cultivate a taste for pork rinds to endear himself to everyday voters, learned the hard way that cigarette boats and golf carts are sorry accessories for a recession-era president - particularly one who is up for reelection.

"There are two ways vacations can mess you up: Number one, choice of location, and number two, of course, is what you do when you get there," said Robert J. Thompson, founder of the Bleier Center for Television and Popular Culture at Syracuse University.

No presidential candidate suffered more on the second count than Kerry. His love of snowboarding, windsurfing, and cycling helped Republicans paint him as an elitist. His apparel became fodder for comics and critics, from his "silly little bicycle pants," as Zell Miller, then a senator, described Kerry's swim trunks, to the elaborate hunting gear he broke out for a staged duck-hunting expedition shortly before Election Day. Being himself or faking it, he just couldn't win.

Presidential vacations have occasionally proved politically beneficial. Historian Richard Norton Smith said President Coolidge's retreats to the family homestead in Vermont, which had no electricity or running water, appealed to nostalgic Americans during the "bacchanalia" of the Roaring Twenties.

"He became a symbol of a simpler, seemingly more virtuous America," he said.

Context is all. For the first five years of his presidency, nobody seemed to mind Eisenhower's obsession with golf vacations, said David Sowell, author of "Eisenhower and Golf: A President at Play." When rival Adlai Stevenson made a crack about the getaways during the 1956 race, Sowell said, the New York Daily News retorted that Stevenson "takes as much risk sneering at baseball, baby, mother, the flag, the home or the dog."

That changed after the Soviets' launch of Sputnik and an economic downturn, Sowell said. By the 1960 election, Eisenhower's excursions had become the butt of jokes for the Kennedy campaign. Kennedy, an avid golfer himself, kept his love of golf a secret, refusing to allow himself to be photographed on the putting green after he took office.

Length of stay can also be an issue, though, by necessity, less for candidates than presidents, particularly President Bush's retreats to his estate in Crawford, Texas.

"Bush woke up this morning, saw his shadow and - six more weeks of vacation," comedian Jay Leno cracked in 2005.

In this year of the "staycation" - the result of high gas prices and a sour economy - and at a time when Republicans are trying to paint Obama as out of touch with ordinary Americans, Hawaii could be a risky venue. But most political analysts said Obama's family connections to the islands will compensate.

More worrisome is lack of privacy - unlike McCain and Bush, he does not own his vacation retreat. And omnipresent cellphone cameras and YouTube mean even semiprivate settings could become public.

In March, the Obamas took a short trip to the Virgin Islands, where a family of tourists prodded him into posing with their daughter. The girl's mother gave the photo to Fox News Channel.

Political observers say the Obamas should observe the same rules they follow on the campaign trail, with some variation.

"Stay away from Hawaiian prints that are too funky," advised Doug Hattaway, a former spokesman for former presidential candidate and Vice President Al Gore.

Thompson suggested Obama steer clear of Speedo swimwear.

"I think that's actually a good life rule in general," he said.

Lisa Wangsness can be reached at lwangsness@globe.com.