Anecdotally, I can confirm the poll. Virtually every German and Swiss that I talk to are enthusiastically for Obama. Their knowledge of the man and his politics, of course, is quite superficial. The article gives one indication why that is so, because they conflate Obama with JFK. Anyone knowledgeable with Kennedy would know that, despite his faults, he was philosophically an anti-Communist. Barak Obama, a disciple of Saul Alinsky, can hardly lay claim to kinship with Kennedy in that respect.
I think the support for Obama comes for the same reasons that it appears in America: Obama is black. There is no other conceivable reason for such a man with his stunning lack of qualifications to have virtually sewn up the nomination of a (formerly ) great American political party and to have found himself on the threshold of becoming President of the United States of America. As a black man, and an empty vessel, Obama, by his very personhood, offers the left expiation for the sins of slavery and prejudice. Since much of Europe believes that white America is bigoted, they join in this mass hypnosis.
Some years ago here on Free Republic there was a serious discussion about why Europe and America are traveling down diverging paths. It has more to it than mere distaste of George Bush and fondness for Barak Obama, it has to do with a widening gulf of philosophy between left and right.
I know there is a lot of indignant reaction in America especially on the right to the arrogance of leftism in Europe. The human reaction is to declare that we don't care what Europe thinks. The problem is, that conservatism is on the run all over the world, even in Europe despite the elections in France and in Britain. That leaves a shrinking number of red states in America, whose number might soon be reduced to the citadel of the old Confederacy, to carry the torch of liberty for the whole world. If Europe succumbs to leftism, it will succumb in the war of Islamic Jihad and America will be left without allies. The freedom of the whole world will be placed in jeopardy. I do not believe a dwindling number of red states, without any effective leverage in the federal government, can long hold out against the threat of international leftism.
By the time Barak Obama and the leftist American Senate conclude a series of international treaties, starting with "climate change", there will be no American Constitution and no Bill of Rights left.
We have no choice but to care about what Europe thinks.
