They May Just Start Liking Us Again...

I've just returned from a visit to Europe.  We visited London, Venice, Brussels and Bruges.  Everywhere I went, my daughter and I wore our Barack Obama buttons (see photo) and it helped us make a lot of new friends.  Honestly, if Europeans voted in this election, well, they wouldn't have to bother with ballots.  They could just do it by acclamation!

While there, I also picked up a copy of the Newsweek international edition with an article by Stryker McGuire, "The Global Election."  He makes the point that "the world has never watched any vote, in any nation, so closely. In country after country, polls show record-high fascination with the outcome of the U.S. elections this Tuesday."  McGuire makes it clear why they're interested.

"...the election played large and transformational: a 21st-century man with whom the whole world can identify versus an old cold-warrior out of synch with the complex political and economic crises of our age. The election, it seemed, had morphed into a meta-election. If at home, especially as the election neared its end, Obama seemed to be playing down his blackness, his intellect, his eliteness and his progressive ideas, these were the qualities that more and more drew the rest of the world to him. The world loved the idea that a man named Barack Hussein Obama could become America's 44th president after a 200-year string of white guys named Washington and Jefferson, Clinton and Bush."

That was definitely my conclusion.  We were stopped by restaurant owners, taxi drivers, hotel clerks and even fellow tourists; every single one wanting to make sure we knew that they, too, wanted him to win.

I realize that Europeans liking Obama would be red meat for a Sarah Palin speech, using it as evidence of how weak he is: to be supported by the French!

It's no reason, by itself, to support Barack Obama, I suppose.  Even the Europeans think he's going to drive some hard bargains if he wins.  But they seem ready to like America again.  If we give them the chance...