Many have said that we are now living in a “post-American” world, where the United States of America is not longer the dominant global power. Witness, for example, the dramatic slide of the dollar against major currencies over the last three years (recently reversed), the increasing cohesion of Europe under the European Union and the growing economies of the BRIC nations (Brazil, Russia, India, China). But if America’s relative importance on the world stage has dimmed, the global spotlight couldn’t be shining any more brightly on the U.S. presidential campaign.
No political event in memory has captured Western Europe’s attention like this contest for president. From television to tabloids, in conversations virtual and actual, the U.S. presidential election has significance far beyond U.S. borders. It’s hard to imagine that residents of Geneva, Ohio, are any more steeped in the current presidential campaign than those in Geneva, Switzerland.
Because of Switzerland’s three official languages – French, German and Italian — press shops carry magazines and newspapers from Germany, France and Italy, as well as Switzerland. Its international community creates a market for British, Asian and Middle Eastern publications. Yet magazine racks are a mosiac of the faces of U.S. presidential candidates. First it was Senator Hillary Clinton and Senator Barack Obama, then it was mostly Obama with a little Senator John McCain (and even Michelle Obama). Now, Governor Sarah Palin smiles, shouts and waves a raised arm on magazine covers from all over the world.
Similarly, Swiss cable television carries stations from all over Western Europe. Just like their American counterparts, many have developed special graphics and logos to signal the commencement of a segment on U.S. presidential politics. My favorite is the spinning Maison Blanche – White House – on France 24, which hurtles through space like Dorothy’s house into Oz. In a regular montage of political figures, the faces of McCain, Obama, Palin, and Senator Joe Biden turn up as often as those of Nicolas Sarkozy, president of France, or Angela Merkel, chancellor of Germany.
It’s no secret that Europe is Obama country. Obama was greeted like a rock star during his tour here in July, while President George W. Bush was tolerated with tepid politeness when he visited a month earlier. But Europeans are also fascinated by Palin. Even television news programs here run footage I can’t imagine being broadcast in the U.S., like a voluptuous, lingerie-clad Palin look-alike cavorting with hammer-and-sickle-adorned Russian soldiers at her Alaskan home.
Political jokes and outrages ricochet on the internet, and are as captivating to foreigners as they are to those of us who can vote in the contest. I get dozens of e-mailed missives every week ridiculing the presidential contenders from my two main sources, a Scotswoman and an Italian. I learned that Obama was ahead in Colorado from a Belgian long before I was told by friends and family.
I knew something was up in February this year, when a Democrats Abroad primary polling place was mobbed by Europeans. (Expatriate Americans had their own primary, like a 51st state, except conducted all over the world.) Hundreds of people queued up for hours at the Conrad Hotel in Brussels for a debate between Clinton and Obama surrogates. Fewer than 10% of them were actually eligible to vote in the primary.
A recent survey for the International Herald Tribune showed how much Europeans like Obama’s youth and personality. But I think there’s another factor: Obama’s background isn’t unusual here. A Kenyan father and an American mother? Not much different than the Italian father and Moroccan mother who live upstairs from me. Turks are married to Germans, Cambodians to French, Iranians to Austrians. While the degree of Obama’s success may be uniquely American, his early upbringing in a distant country is typical of mobility here. Children living in Switzerland frequently hold two passports, neither of them Swiss. They often speak one language with one parent, one with another and a third at school. They’re accustomed to the melding of nationalities and cultures that mark Obama’s start in life.
For the last month, everyone I meet who knows that I am an American – the olive vendor at the market, the barber, the postal carrier, the clerk at the Migros French school – has asked me about the U.S. election. They are a variety of nationalities, and to a person, they have the same reaction. They start shyly, by asking me if I have an opinion. When I say I like Obama, they smile and confess how much they hope he wins.
It’s a bit humbling to have foreigners so interested in, and knowledgeable about, our national politics. They can identify red states and blue states, lament the “Bradley effect,” and analyze the popular vote vs. the electoral college By contrast – well, quick, name the president of Switzerland.
Kathleen MacKenzie is a former Denver city councilwoman.
This online-only guest commentary was not edited.
