World Watches U.S. Elections, Waits for a Different America

While we’ve turned presidential elections and the watching news coverage of said elections into a sport in the United States, it seems the rest of the world is following suit. Throughout the world today, people crowded around computer monitors, radios and televisions to follow American election coverage, and there were no shortage of opinions about what the election will mean for the U.S. and the world at large. "Tonight we are not going to sleep," noted Valentine Wambi, a student at the University of Nairobi in Kenya. Many in that country are actively cheering on Senator Barack Obama, perhaps feeling a kinship with the Illinois senator due to his father’s Kenyan ancestry.

Elsewhere, jubilation centered more on the fact that George W. Bush, reviled in parts of the U.S. and elsewhere around the world, would no longer be the U.S. president. In Paris, for instance, a planned "Goodbye George" party was planned. Notes Vanessa Doubine, "Like many French people, I would like Obama to win because it would really be a sign of change. I deeply hope for America’s image that it will be Obama." Doubine, perhaps unwittingly, hit upon an important element to U.S. politics in general, with image being as important - or more so - than substance in many elections.

Said Rais Yatim, the foreign minister of Malaysia, "I hope Obama wins because of the need of the world to see the U.S. represent a more cosmopolitan or universal political attitude." On the contrary, it may be that the elder McCain, generally considered to be more well-versed in foreign policy and security, is more popular in Israel than is Obama. Leah Nizri, a banker in Jerusalem, said she feared frightening change from Obama. "I think he’ll be pleasant to Israel, but he will make changes. He’s too young. I think that especially in a situation of a world recession, where things are so unclear in the world, McCain would be better than Obama." While international appeal is certainly not an advantage in the elections, it would appear that this fact is lost on those around the world who wait with bated breath for the outcome of the 2008 U.S. presidential election.