(by Michelle Rabinowitz)
Ah, one glorious week off from covering the election. One week abroad. In Europe! Where Barack Obama's face was EVERYWHERE! It was on television, on the covers of newspapers and magazines, not to mention the billboards advertising those newspapers and magazines. Leave it to me to take the week off (planned months in advance, no less) when the Democratic nominee was finally decided upon. And, leave it to me to spend a lot of my time listening to people from New Zealand, England, France and Scotland tell me what THEY thought about our election. It turns out they are pretty curious about this Obama chap. They know he's running against "a war hero, which you Americans love," according to a French friend, but mostly they were just impressed by how "cool" he was.
In France people mentioned how curious it was that we might have a "multi-ethnic" president before they will. People were also impressed by his battle against cigarettes, as smoking is a very French pastime.
In the London, I listened to excerpts of Hillary Clinton's endorsement of Obama with a bunch of Brits. "You know," one said to me, "we've already HAD a female prime minister."
And in Scotland, a handful of people from all over the English-speaking world asked me if I really thought Americans would vote for a black man.
The one thing they all mentioned is what they think he's doing for the image of America abroad. I spend a fair amount of time outside of the country, and I don't think it will come as a surprise to anyone that our image abroad rivals that of our president's approval rating here (29 percent).
"Even if he doesn't win," a Frenchman told me, "the fact that he's the candidate is a big deal. It's hard to impress the French, and we are impressed."
I didn't have the heart to tell him I wasn't sure many people here cared.
Oh, and next time I go on vacation, I'm visiting Antarctica.
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