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Political Impact Of Obama Vacationing Shirtless

CHICAGO (CBS) ― Senator Barack Obama is coming back home today after a week's vacation with his family. Pictures of the presidential candidate body surfing in Hawaii are being shown around the world today. CBS 2 Political Editor Mike Flannery takes a look at whether that's good or bad for his political ambitions.

It was debated for weeks inside and outside his campaign. What would be the political impact if Barack Obama should take his shirt off while visiting the beaches of his native Hawaii?

JoAnn Gaydek from Chicago says she would be less likely to vote for Obama after seeing the pictures of him vacationing with his shirt off.

"Because he's half-naked," Gaydek said. "I think it's just unprofessional, inappropriate."

Experts in political marketing though, think most voters will disagree.

"Whether some people interpret that as sexy, some people interpret it as being casual, everyone projects onto it what they want," said Eric Adelstein, political consultant. "I think the most important thing is what he projects out, which is, 'this is who I am and this is what I'm doing.'"

As the family returns to Chicago today, photogenic Michelle Obama is on the cover of yet another magazine. "Radar," claiming to offer "Pop Culture for Smart People," asks and answers its own edgy, if ultimately sympathetic series of Frequently Asked Questions. Typical: "Why does she hate whitey?" Answer: "There is no public evidence of her ever using the word whitey."

Not likely to spark as much water cooler conversation, perhaps, as her husband's muscle-beach shots.

"There is a part of the population who, I think, very much votes with its hormones, if you will," said Lewis Lazare, Sun-Times Columnist. "And this part of the campaign is playing out to that segment of the population."

It's important to note that Obama apparently did spend much of his boyhood body-surfing on Pacific Ocean beaches. Image-making aside, it's nothing new for him.

And it is a far cry from what Bill and Hillary Clinton did during his 1996 presidential re-election campaign. He had his pollster take a survey, and then President Clinton canceled a vacation at exclusive Martha's Vineyard near Cape Cod in favor of a hunting trip out west with a shotgun and photographers invited.

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