- • In Trinidad, calypso legend The Mighty Sparrow sings "Barack the Magnificant", and in Jamaica reggae star Cocoa Tea sings "We Want Obama".
• In Egypt a humanitarian worker has written letters to dozens of superdelegates urging them to back Obama.
• In China a dramatic Obama rally is being planned on the Great Wall.
• In Gaza a Palestinian student has been making hundreds of campaign phone calls to the US over the internet, whenever he has electricity and is not under Israeli bombardment.
• In Kenya, Obama is so popular that a beer has been named after him!
• On the internet there over 40 international Obama fan groups on Facebook, many with more than 500 members, focused on Denmark, France, Indonesia, Tanzania and many other countries. There are also dozens of blogs and websites.
On an interconnected and interdependent planet, the policies of the US have a huge impact on our lives. After the long and arrogant Bush years, Senator Obama looks different, he sounds different and millions of non-Americans believe he will behave differently towards them. They may not agree with all his current policies, and they understand that he will face difficult choices and compromises when he is in office. However, they trust him to do his best because he has demonstrated strong principles and a willingness to listen and engage constructively, even with countries that have been seen as America's enemies.
Obama favourite in UK across all demographic groups
A poll by the YouGov / Sunday Times (pdf) of 2,469 adults on 14th February showed that, of those with a preference, 49% of Britons back Senator Obama to win the US elections (39% Clinton, 12% McCain). What is most remarkable is that Obama was the favourite across all the demographic categories in the poll: UK political party, age, gender, income and region. For example 44% of Conservative voters prefered him, 50% of female voters, and 46% over 55yrs.
Times of London Poll: 69% for Obama
Coinciding with the mini-super tuesday primaries, the Times newspaper ran an online poll on 3-4 March. Election correspondent Hannah Strange explained the premiss: "The US presidential elections have a global impact like no other. From African cotton-growers to Palestinian refugees, what happens in polling booths from Maine to California come November will affect the futures of all the world's citizens, in some cases more materially than the decisions of their own governments. Yet we have no vote." Currently the poll shows 69% for Obama, up from 65% on 4th March when the Times wrote: "Barack Obama is the global choice for the Democratic presidential nominee by a margin of almost two to one... The poll, running on Across the Pond, the Times US elections blog, had by lunchtime attracted more than 1750 voters over a period of 24 hours. These were evenly spread across Europe and United States, while the Middle East, Africa, Russia, China, Central Asia and Australia also saw heavy participation. Votes came from as far-flung countries as Mauritius, Bangladesh, South Africa and Japan, as well as arenas of US military involvement such as Iraq and Afghanistan. The only country with a significant tilt towards Mrs Clinton was Israel."
Global voting websites
A couple of websites have been set up independently to try and assess world opinion on the US elections. What if we all voted? has received 922 votes so far from people in 57 countries, resulting in 48% for Obama, 23% for Clinton, 9% for McCain and the balance for candidates who have dropped out (Ron Paul got an impressive 14%). Ron Paul's dedicated online campaigners meant he also did well on another site, Who Would the World Elect, which recieved over 38,000 international votes; out of the three main candidates Obama recieved 72% of the vote (Clinton 24%, McCain 4%). Al-Jazeera International has recieved about 10,000 votes so far on its website, with Obama in the lead with 76% of the votes cast for the main three candidates (Clinton 15%, McCain 9%).
VoteMatch USA 2008 is an initative of the Dutch Institute for Political Particpation which asks you to choose between Obama's and Clinton's policies on 13 issues (Iraq, Cuba, immigration etc.), which you can also weight based on which issues they consider most important. The result is a score showing which of the two most closely matches your views. It's a good idea, although most of the issues are not foreign policy, and some (like disparity in sentencing between cocaine and crack) are a bit esoteric for most non-Americans to have formed a view about. The results at present show 68% for Obama out of 23,018 votes cast on the Dutch version of the site, and 70% for Obama out of 1102 votes cast on the english verison, since 20th February.
Swiss prefer Obama
"If the Swiss could take part and cast a vote in the US presidential race, they would clearly vote for Barack Obama. According to a survey launched by the Swiss weekly newspaper “L’Hebdo”... 47.7% of people in a Switzerland-wide survey would like to see Obama as the next American President, only 29.8% favour Hillary Clinton... John McCain was knocked off to the 3rd place with only 4.9%. The Swiss do not trust him to improve the reputation of the USA." (Translated from SDA/ATS, 6/3/08). Given that 17.6% of those polled were undecided, out of those who expressed an opinion Obama got 58% of the vote!
Poll Results: Japan, Brazil, South Africa, Iraq & London for Obama!
Here are the results from polls we conducted of 1000 people across 5 countries in Africa, Asia, Europe, Middle East and Latin America:
- • 71% of Brazilians support Obama, (Clinton 22%), (McCain 15%)
• 61% of Londoners (UK) support Obama, (Clinton 32%), (McCain 7%)
• 54% or Iraqis support Obama (Clinton 25%), (McCain 21%)
• 74% of Japanese support Obama (Clinton 18%), (McCain 9%)
• 64% of South Africans support Obama (Clinton 25%), (McCain 12%)
The polls were conducted from February 16th – February 23rd (using Facebook polls - http://www.facebook.com/business/?polls ), the sample size was 200 For Each Poll, targetted at specific national networks (London was used because there is no Facebook network for the UK as a whole). The question asked was "Non-Americans, who should be the next US president?" The order of the candidates was automatically randomized so there would be no bias towards Senator Obama.
Poll/Opinion: Russians for Obama
"After presenting the question to nearly 50 Russians, the answer is clear: 100% of our not-so-random sampling said Senator Barack Obama is their first choice. Huh? Up is down and down is up, at least if you believe conventional wisdom. Why would the Russians, stereotypically considered to be a racist and conservative nation, pick Senator Obama—the first viable black U.S. presidential candidate, and the one who many Americans agree breaks the traditional U.S. presidential mold on many levels?... The reasons are varied. Some of Russia Blog’s Russian friends have had great experiences in the U.S., and they genuinely believe that the first-term junior senator from Illinois is a leader who is capable of bringing positive change to America. They like Mr. Obama’s goal of withdrawing the troops from Iraq and agree with his health care and education policies. Other Russians are more concerned about Russia, and don’t like the anti-Putin rhetoric of Senators John McCain and Hillary Clinton. (It is important to remember that Vladimir Putin still enjoys nearly 80 percent approval rating, and most Russians view themselves as enjoying more freedom and wealth today than ever before in their country’s thousand-year history.) John McCain’s “I looked into his eyes, and I saw K-G-B,” or Hillary Clinton’s “Putin has no soul” aren’t helpful and don’t play well with Russians who think seriously about the future of the U.S.-Russia relationship."
62% of Iraqis favour Obama
In a Facebook poll of 100 Iraqis on 20 February, asked "Non-Americans, who should be the next US President?", the results were overwhelmingly in favour of Senator Obama with 62%. Clinton and McCain tied for second place with just 19% of the vote.
63% of Londoners favour Obama
In a Facebook poll of 100 Londoners on 17 February, asked "Non-Americans, who should be the next US President?", the results were overwhelmingly in favour of Senator Obama.
Among the publics around the world, a low regard for President Bush is more heavily correlated with an unfavorability rating for the United States than is any other attitude or opinion tested in this survey, according to an analysis of the data.
Moreover, when respondents in our international survey who expressed an unfavorable opinion of the United States were asked directly whether the problem was more with President Bush or with America in general, they primarily placed the blame on the president.
Although Americans have done many positive things around the world, the US government - once the champion of anti-colonialism and self-determination - has often appeard to be an arrogant bully, waging war and pursuing its own interests at the expense of others. President Bush has taken this to extremes, but the general policy was little better under his predecessors, for example Bill Clinton imposed economic sanctions on Iraq for all eight years of his presidency, against the wishes of the vast majority of UN countries, causing the unnecessary deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children.
References:
http://www.theworldwantsobama.org/search/label/*Polls
http://pewglobal.org/reports/display.php?PageID=801
