A Global Picture

So much of the media's election coverage revolves around domestic issues: policy changes each candidate will make, how they plan to help Americans, and more recently, heated accusations and challenges of character. Yet the domestic concerns are only half of a president's responsibilities. Foreign policy (that thing that Joe Biden is so good at and that Sarah Palin winds up embarrassing herself over) and how the US is represented on a global scale are just as important. Over the past 8 years, America's world image has suffered. Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 911 recieved standing ovations world-wide. Large numbers of tourists, including a German couple I know who are quite fond of backpacking in the American West, plan trips to Canada to avoid Americans. We have generally established a persona of arrogance, impatience, and ignorance. But change is in sight: change we can believe in.
In a recent BBC poll, voters in each of the 22 countries studied preferred Obama to McCain, in an overall ratio of four to one. Almost half of these voters declared that thier view on the US would "fundamentally change" with Obama's election. This seems to fit with Colin Powell's theory that Obama's election would "electrify the world." Hopefully the world's hatred of Bush will be outwieghed by its love of Obama, and America's actions will reestablish its international legitimacy. But if not, maybe the fresh, modern, hip America that could elect Obama could also transform its own image. Electing him would sure help with that though.

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