It is no secret that Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama has attracted a lot of international attention. An opinion poll released Wednesday by the BBC World Service suggests people in 22 countries would prefer Obama as president by a margin of 4 to 1 over Republican rival John McCain.
But there are plenty of people in Europe who believe that even a President Obama would have trouble mending the trans-Atlantic relationship.
In a thoroughly unscientific poll in the parking lot of a south London supermarket, there were a few people like Christian Palmer who said they would support the 72-year-old senator from Arizona.
"Probably McCain, to be honest with you," Palmer said, "purely because Obama — I don't think there's a lot of substance there, personally."
Others, like Jimmy Hutton and his wife, said they really didn't care.
"I don't know enough about it," Hutton said, adding that he doesn't follow the U.S. election.
And some people, like Jo Cook, who was loading her purchases into her car, disagreed with both candidates.
"I think they're both rubbish," Cook said.
'Setting Himself Up For A Very Large Fall'?
Overwhelmingly, though, opinions among the group of London shoppers followed the findings of the BBC's global poll in favor of Obama. And it is not just the majority of British that feel this way.
"For Germans, someone like McCain would be seen as a third term of Bush," said Andreas Etges, a professor at the Free University of Berlin. Etges said the maverick-ness of the maverick McCain seems to be lost on many Europeans.
"The way Obama is perceived here will make things possible again," Etges said. "It's not logical, or it's somewhat irrational, but that is part of politics that we have to consider — emotions — it's not just about their politics, but their style."
Obama had a rock star welcome in Berlin in July and was also invited by French President Nicolas Sarkozy to the Elysee Palace — an honor not accorded to McCain on his visit.
But not everyone in Europe is convinced that an Obama presidency would make everything better.
"Popular culture is aggressively anti-American," said French political commentator Anne-Elisabeth Moutet. "Americans are seen as warmongers. This is something that has been allowed to spread because it was very easy to express contempt of America. I don't know how it can be fixed even if Obama is elected."
Moutet and others said many Europeans don't realize that Obama will be under the same constraints as any American president if he wins the election.
"I think in some ways he is setting himself up for a very large fall, should he win," said Timothy Lynch of the University of London and author of After Bush: The Case for Continuity in American Foreign Policy. "He has to return to these capitals where he has been touted as the great savior of American democracy, and he has to ask the assorted European leaders for more troops — and can he make them fight in dangerous places. Now, I think for all his cosmopolitanism and life story, they will have the same reaction to George Bush's request to that kind of level of support, which is to say: 'No, we are very cautious about your war on terror, we don't recognize its moral legitimacy and strategic efficacy. Please go back and reconsider.' "
Clearly there will be readjustments in trans-Atlantic relations no matter who wins the U.S. election, but the other question on people's lips in the parking lot of that south London supermarket was this: Can't we just have the vote now? Tomorrow, maybe?
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