Barack Obama's trip abroad consumed 51 percent of the campaign story newshole for the week of July 21-27, according to the Project for Excellence in Journalism, but it didn't make much of a dent in the poll numbers in his race with John McCain. A new CNN/Opinion Research survey, conducted entirely after the trip, showed Obama ahead 51 percent to 44 percent, compared to 50 percent to 45 percent a month ago. CNN Polling Director Keating Holland said the trip did not do much to help with Obama's standing with the public on foreign policy issues. "Obama has not picked up any ground against McCain on foreign issues and some 52 percent think McCain would do a better job than Obama on the war in Iraq -- virtually the same number who felt that way in April," he said. McCain also continues to hold the advantage on every foreign policy and national security issue covered by the poll.

The good news for Obama was that McCain's criticism of the trip did not resonate with the public, particularly his claim that Obama cancelled a visit to injured trips because the media could not accompany him. More than two-thirds of voters thought the trip appropriate and 72 percent said they believed Obama cares about veterans and troops in Iraq.

See also yesterday's Gallup survey on public views of Obama's trip.

A key point in the campaign stands that Barack Obama and John McCain have taken on what U.S. strategy should be in dealing with Iraq and Afghanistan is the question of which country should be the U.S. priority in the battles to put down insurgencies and fight terrorism. Part of Obama's argument for a timetable for withdrawal of U.S. troops in Iraq is that Afghanistan represents the greatest threat. McCain has insisted that withdrawal from Iraq must be determined by events on the ground and that victory there is a necessary first step towards success in Afghanistan.

Now the USA Today/Gallup poll weighs in on the question, and similarly to what Rasmussen Reports found in a national poll in mid-July and in its state-by-state polls, a plurality of Americans believe the war in Afghanistan is more important than the one in Iraq by a 44 percent to 38 percent margin. Ten percent say "both equally" and 8 percent have no opinion.

As Barack Obama gives a speech on Iraq and Afghanistan in Washington this morning, as a prelude to his upcoming trip to both countries, a Washington Post/ABC News poll conducted July 10-13 finds Americans split down the middle between his proposal to withdraw most American troops from Iraq in 16 months and McCain's insistence that events on the ground dictate when troops are withdrawn. Fifty percent of those polled favored a timetable and 49 percent opposed one.

Voters are also closely divided on which man they trust more to handle Iraq. Forty-seven percent say McCain while 45 percent choose Obama and 9 percent are undecided. That difference is within the poll's 3 point margin of error. One area, however, where McCain stands far better than Obama is in who Americans believe would be a better commander-in-chief. Seventy-two percent say it would be McCain as opposed to 25 percent who disagree, while the public is split 48 percent to 48 percent when it comes to measuring Obama against that question. A majority of voters say both men have been clear in articulating their positions.

The sharp division on these questions could trace in part to widespread American opposition to the Iraq war, tempered by the greater faith in McCain's experience.

Americans believe 63 percent to 36 percent that the war in Iraq was not worth fighting; but they do, by a modest 51 percent to 45 percent majority that war in Afghanistan, launched in response to the Sept. 11 2001 terrorist attacks in the U.S., was worth fighting. Obama lately has been trying to make the case that Afghanistan is the key front in the war on terror and that the energies invested in Iraq have hurt that effort.

Rasmussen Reports, in its state-by-state match-ups of the two candidates, has been asking whether voters prefer the next President have the goal of getting the troops home by the end of his first term, or winning the war - and in nearly all cases, "getting the troops home" is the top choice, often by large margins.