World eyes race hoping to restore faith in US

GERMANS are gaga over Barack Obama.

He’s got Japan pretty jazzed, too, along with Hillary Rodham Clinton. Russia’s leaders, not so much: They prefer a Republican — as long as it’s not Kremlin critic John McCain. And Mexico’s president? He doesn’t have much use for any of them.

With so much at stake in the race for the White House, the world is watching with an intensity unseen seen since the Clinton era began in 1992.

After eight years of George W Bush, the latest mantra in US politics — “transformational change” — is resonating across the rest of a planet desperate for a fresh start.

“They feel there’s a real chance to work with the US,” said Julianne Smith, a senior fellow at the Washington-based Centre for Strategic and International Studies. “America’s image is really on the line.”

Non-Americans, she said, are looking for someone who can “restore faith in the US”.

Mr Obama, perhaps not surprisingly, is generating most of the buzz abroad.

“Der schwarze Kennedy” some German admirers are calling him: “The black JFK.”

“He is young, charming and sexy,” newspaper Bild gushed. “Obama is the ideal projection screen for hopes and expectations in Europe” and the US alike, said Christian Hacke, a professor at the University of Bonn.

“I like his ideas, his attitude, his appearance. I prefer him to Hillary Clinton, who is more artificial,” said Eva Berto, a Rome doctor who thinks he would bring a new approach to the crisis in Iraq and the nuclear standoff with Iran.

Japanese media are closely tracking Mr Obama and Ms Clinton.

“The idea since the country’s founding — ‘You can’t become president if you’re not a white man’ — has already been destroyed,” the Mainichi newspaper said.

But in Europe, where some see Mr Obama as untested, support for Ms Clinton is widespread, and nostalgia for her husband’s charisma runs deep.

The Republican presidential hopefuls, by contrast, are not highly regarded in Europe: Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee are seen as too religious, and Mr McCain as too old at 71 years of age.

To Britons, history’s most popular post-war presidents were Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton because of their perceived levelheadedness and intelligence, said Patrick Dunleavy, a political scientist at the London School of Economics.

Yet Democrats don’t rule the entire world of public opinion.

Saad al-Hadithi, a political analyst in Baghdad, contends the Republican candidates are more committed to Iraq and have a better approach.

Russia’s leaders also consider Republicans more pragmatic, said Nkolai Petrov, an analyst with the Carnegie Moscow Centre.

But the Kremlin, said Mr Petrov, would likely have “serious concerns” if Mr McCain wins the Republican nomination because of the Arizona senator’s harsh and persistent criticism of Vladimir Putin’s autocratic government.

Others in Russia are drawn to the US campaign if only because it is such a sharp contrast to Moscow’s tightly choreographed March 2 election.

Africans gravitate toward Mr Obama, whose father was from Kenya.

Israelis, though, seem to prefer Ms Clinton — even though Mr Obama has voiced support for key Israeli demands in peace talks with the Palestinians.