Global Obama

The Moderate Voice has a quick wrap-up of the global reaction to Obama's win the other night, and how Obama has captured the attention of the global press.

This is a bit off-topic for this blog, but I wanted to add something here. When I was in Europe last February, I got to talking politics with a couple of people I met from Austria and Slovakia. What was interesting was that in each case, the European brought the topic up, and in each case their first question was in essence "what can you tell me about this man Obama"? There was a fascination with him that was amazing to me, especially considering as this was before Obama had really started picking up momentum here in the States. It's tough to pick just one reason why they were so fascinated with him, though I think the Moderate Voice's analysis comes pretty close to the mark.

But there was something else there, at least with respect to the few people with whom I spoke. The best way to express this element of the fascination is that it was a hopeful amazement that we had a plausible Presidential candidate who actually has experience with the rest of the world beyond just carefully orchestrated and superficial diplomatic and "human rights" missions.