24 Jun Obama’s Global Appeal
The folks at Pew Research have just released a poll highlighting just how popular Barack Obama is in the rest of the world.
People around the world who have been paying attention to the American election express more confidence in Barack Obama than in John McCain to do the right thing regarding world affairs. McCain is rated lower than Obama in every country surveyed, except for the United States where his rating matches Obama’s, as well as in Jordan and Pakistan where few people have confidence in either candidate.
Obama’s advantage over McCain is overwhelming in the Western European countries surveyed: Fully 84% of the French who have been following the election say they have confidence in Obama to do the right thing regarding world affairs, compared with 33% who say that about McCain. The differences in ratings for Obama and McCain are about as large in Spain and Germany, and are only somewhat narrower in Great Britain.
These are fascinating results. But will either candidate make use of Obama’s global appeal in the general election? I doubt it. McCain has no incentive to highlight the global gap in confidence. And somehow I rather doubt that a campaign slogan that the “Europeans Like Me!” is in the offing for Obama. Obama might try to highlight how our global standing in the world has fallen dramatically in recent years and that he could help restore our image abroad. That might have resonance with voters. Time will tell whether improving our global image will become a campaign issue.
The other interesting piece of news is that regardless of who wins, large majorities abroad think that America will change for the better.
The survey also finds a widespread belief that U.S. foreign policy “will change for the better” after the inauguration of a new American president next year. Among people who have been following the election, large majorities in France (68%), Spain (67%) and Germany (64%) say that they believe that U.S. foreign policy will improve after the election. This sentiment is also common in the African countries included in the survey – Nigeria (67%), South Africa (66%) and Tanzania (65%).
The graph looks about how I would expect it to. As a general matter, I imagine it’d look the same for most Republican/Democrat match-ups.