Here's a point about narrative.  Yesterday on ABC's "This Week" Cokie Roberts said:

ROBERTS: Yeah, that he has certainly come nowhere near closing the deal. As we've talked about before, in this year that should be such a Democratic year given all the other indices, he is tied in the polls and stage-sided in the polls and going off this week to a vacation in Hawaii —

VICTORIA CLARKE (former Pentagon spokeswoman): Right.

ROBERTS: — does not make any sense whatsoever. I know his grandmother lives in Hawaii and I know Hawaii is a state, but it has the look of him going off to some sort of foreign, exotic place. He should be in Myrtle Beach, and, you know, if he's going to take a vacation at this time.

CLARKE: Well, and —

ROBERTS: And I just think that, you know, this is not the time to do that.

Last I checked, Hawaii is a state in the Union (with a governor, a couple of senators, etc).  It also happens to be the state where Obama was born, which fact makes him eligible to run for President of the United States.