Does the entire world prefer Obama?
Maybe so, if we are to believe the results of a self-reported poll of international voters by the Economist (http://www.economist.com/Vote2008/) that depicts a blue landslide nearly everywhere across the globe.
Everywhere but….Albania? PostGlobal (http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/postglobal/sais/nexteurope/2008/10/mccains_edge_in_albania.html) features a piece claiming that John McCain may edge out Barack Obama for support in this Balkan outpost due to McCain’s (and Bush’s) suport for independence in Albanian-majority Kosovo.
Affinity for U.S. military action may buoy McCain in other political hotspots like Georgia, where NATO support in a war with Russia is considered more likely in a GOP administration, and Cuba, where revolution-era exiles continue to heavily back Republican candidates. In both countries, the Economist narrowly tips the scales to McCain.
Elsewhere, we find plenty of anger over the current economic crisis and a fair amount of hope that a President Obama will chart a new, more equitable course. Outlook India (http://www.outlookindia.com/full.asp?fodname=20081021&fname=puri&sid=1) columnist Rajinder Puri rather skeptically reports on economist Amartya Sen’s prediction that Obama’s election will renew confidence in world financial markets. Several of this week’s contributors to Dear American Voter from India also sense that Democratic economic policies will help end the current “bloodbath” among investors.
(embed video of Smita or Delano D’Souza from DAV)
But at Der Spiegel, blogger Peter Ross Range (http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,585862,00.html) worries that “a brilliantly successful campaign can still become a failed presidency,” comparing a potential Obama administration with Jimmy Carter and second-term LBJ and Nixon. At the same time, he alternates his concern with an invokation of Colin Powell’s declaration this week that an Obama election could prove “transformational.”
Are world observers correct in hoping for positive change in an Obama administration? Let us know your thoughts here (http://www.linktv.org/dearamericanvoter/submit).
