President Obama, with wife, Michelle, and daughters, Malia and Sasha, visited the Bass Harbor Head Lighthouse yesterday in Maine. (Charles Dharapak/Associated Press)
WASHINGTON — Critics are lambasting President Obama for taking a family getaway to Maine this weekend, a preview of what awaits should the first family, as is widely anticipated, return to the pristine beaches of Martha’s Vineyard for a longer vacation next month.
How could the Obamas relax on the New England coast, they fume, when the nation is fighting two wars, oil blobs are washing ashore in the Gulf of Mexico, and unemployment remains a stubbornly high 9.5 percent? The Republican National Committee last week launched a snarky website cataloging the president’s recreational activities, including his Maine trip, under the heading: “Play Golf or Save the Gulf?’’
Unfair or not, the criticism illus trates how the length, locale, and style of the president’s vacation is loaded with symbolic implications and potential for political trouble, specialists say. This time around, the beaches of the Vineyard could make a jarring, split-screen contrast with scenes from the gulf.
“You’re picking this pristine beach, whereas all the shrimpers are stuck in the muck,’’ said presidential historian Bill Leuchtenberg. But Americans understand presidents need time off. It’s difficult to predict, said Leuchtenberg, whether Obama will pay a lasting price with voters.
Critics routinely pummeled President George W. Bush for his frequent, extended brush-clearing excursions to his Texas ranch: 77 trips, according to an exhaustive tally by CBS News, totaling all or part of 490 days during his eight-year presidency.
Bush’s former press secretary, Ari Fleischer, called for a bipartisan “cease-fire’’ on criticism of presidential vacations.
“Presidencies wear people out,’’ Fleischer said. “And they just simply deserve a break, especially a president with a couple little kids.’’
Michelle Obama highlighted the political pitfalls of presidential vacations when, during a trip last week to the gulf, she said Americans should consider staying at one of the gulf’s “beautiful beaches’’ to boost that region’s economy. The comment could heighten criticism if the Obamas vacation on the Vineyard.
“I personally would love to be able to see them spend their family vacation, like millions of other families do, in our area,’’ said Kim Chapman, public relations manager for Gulf Shores and Orange Beach Tourism, in Alabama. “Our destination is still very much open for business.’’
The gulf region anticipates tourism may fall as much as 50 percent this summer, she said, because many travelers wrongly believe the entire region is coated in oil. “Unfortunately, perception is reality,’’ Chapman said.
July and August are normally the peak season for gulf beaches, said Raad Cawthom, spokesman for the Pensacola Bay Area Convention & Visitors Bureau.
The White House has released no details about this year’s Obama vacation, but staffers widely expect the president to return to the Vineyard, and sources on the island say preparations are already underway.
“Indications are very strong,’’ said Nancy Gardella, director of the island’s chamber of commerce.
Jeff Kristal, owner of The Crocker House Inn in the village of Vineyard Haven, said a reservation company has been holding rooms all over the island, apparently to accommodate the legion of security and staff that travel with the president. Kristal said he has been asked to set aside a block of rooms for August 19-30. “It’s playing out same as last year,’’ he said.
Rarely is the nation so trouble-free that any president can escape on holiday without some eye-rolling from critics.
“There are enough tough problems at any moment that they open themselves up to the, ‘How can the president take a vacation at a time like this?’ question,’’ said David Lewis, professor of political science at Vanderbilt University, who specializes in the presidency.
The problem is more acute for Obama, said Leuchtenberg. He noted that President Ronald Reagan took the equivalent of a year’s vacation over the course of his eight years in office, but few people much minded since vacation fit with the former actor’s laid-back style.
“The problem with Obama is that he ran an intense campaign, and is an intense person, with the mantra of change,’’ Leuchtenberg said. “It’s harder for Obama to break away.’’
Even on vacation, no president ever breaks completely from the enormous problems that land on the chief executive’s desk.
“The president is not like a normal citizen who gets away from it all,’’ said Fleischer. “The job always intrudes, even on the downest of down days.’’
Presidents travel with all the infrastructure needed to run the government remotely and deal with emergencies, he said. “It’s a remarkable operation because a city goes with him — actually it’s a city that gets there ahead of time. By the time he gets there, it’s all in place.’’
That traveling city became semipermanent outside President Bush’s ranch in Crawford, Texas. It included 10 to 15 doublewide trailers packed with communications equipment and offices, said Fleischer. Even on the quietest vacation day, Bush’s routine included an in-person CIA briefing, and then a secure video teleconference on national security matters, often with members of the National Security Council or military officials, he said. A vacationing president still has documents to sign and briefs to read, he said.
On top of the usual criticism, for many presidents the traditional August retreat has been a time for major events to strike with uncanny bad timing.
The Obama’s vacation to Martha’s Vineyard last year was a fitful visit delayed by bad weather, and interrupted by the death of Senator Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts. The president left the Vineyard to speak at Kennedy’s funeral in Boston.
President Eisenhower suffered a heart attack while vacationing in Colorado. Both Presidents Bush were determined to take the month of August off — George H. W. Bush at the family home in Kennebunkport, Maine, and George W. Bush, at his ranch in Texas. But neither president came away unscathed.
In 2005, antiwar demonstrators camped outside the younger Bush’s ranch complained that the president shouldn’t be clearing brush or golfing when US troops were in harm’s way in Iraq. The president returned two days early from vacation after Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans, but the perception remained that the president was relaxing during a natural disaster.
The elder Bush found his vacations interrupted by world-shaking news: one year, the Soviet Union was falling apart; in another, the United States was building up to the first Gulf War. “What is it about August?’’ Bush mused from Kennebunkport.
President Bill Clinton was also fond of Martha’s Vineyard, spending most of his presidential vacations there. He switched for two years to Jackson Hole, Wyo., after his pollster suggested that Americans considered the Vineyard too elitist.
“The president and the White House are sensitive to the politics and perception of where you are going, or at least, they should be. It’s one of those things that everyday people do extrapolate from,’’ said Chris Lehane, a California-based Democratic consultant and former Al Gore campaign aide.
Clinton eventually returned to the island, but those vacations were not always serene. One visit came just as the Monica Lewinsky scandal exploded. Another year, Princess Diana died in a car crash in Paris.
President Jimmy Carter, no fan of fancy vacations, tried to avoid exotic tourist destinations, said author Peter Bourne, a former adviser to Carter and his biographer. Bourne said the former president took no time off during the 444-day Iranian hostage crisis, from 1979 to 1981, because the situation was all-consuming.
“If he had taken time off he would not have been able to relax,’’ said Bourne, in an interview over e-mail. “I do not think he would have made any different decisions even if he had.’’
Mark Arsenault can be reached at
marsenault@globe.com; Milligan at
milligan@globe.com.
