A European Bounce for Candidate Obama

Written by Timothy B. Hurst

Latest Gallup Poll suggests Obama lead grew while in Europe

From the 200,000 Germans that showed up to see Senator Obama speak in Berlin, to the press conference he had with a gushing French President Nicolas Sarkozy, it is not hard to understand why one European newspaper referred to him as, “Arguably the world’s most popular politician.”

But during a press conference with Sarkozy, one French journalist asked the politically astute question: “Is it a good thing to be loved by the French in the United States?”

Obama replied by saying both countries have suffered from caricatures — America as unilateral and militaristic, and France as anti-American and soft on security, but that in actuality, “The average American has enormous fondness for the French people,” Obama said. “And I think people in France and people throughout Europe should not underestimate how much interest there is in America in seeing the transatlantic relationship improving.”

Obama’s trip to the Middle East and Europe was designed, in part, to give those who doubted his presidential capacity, particularly in matters of foreign affairs, a glimpse of the junior Senator from Illinois being, well, “presidential.”

And it seems to have worked.

A July 26th Gallup Poll suggests that Obama has actually widened his lead over Republican John McCain while in Europe. Obama’s current seven-point lead over McCain ties the widest since the start of Gallup Poll Daily tracking of the general election in early March. The one other time there was a seven point difference was immediately after Hillary Clinton suspended her campaign for the Democratic nomination in early June.

Let me make this clear, polling is not an exact science, and swings of a couple of points here or there really don’t mean that much. And certainly some portion of the widening gap is attributable to the extra media coverage the trip sparked.

But as the Barack Obama Summer World Tour winds up today in London, it is plain to see the presumptive Democratic nomminee’s rock-star appeal is not bound by the shores of the United States. And Americans have reacted to candidate Obama’s overseas trip quite favorably.

Is it possible that the blinders that kept so many Americans from seeing how the rest of the world actually perceives us are now revealing that they have some holes?

Original here