Posted By Blake Hounshell Share

We've all seen the myriad stories on how, outside the United States, a healthy chunk of the global public is rooting for Barack Obama to win the presidency. (Thomas Friedman provided the latest example this week).

Those stories tend to be anecdotal, so I was interested to see that the Pew Global Attitudes Project has some real numbers to bring to the conversation. Asked in which candidate they have more confidence, well-informed respondents in 22 countries plus the United States responded like so:

As you can see, the only country that prefers McCain, besides the United States, is Jordan. It's interesting to note that the Jordan portion of the survey, conducted in face-to-face interviews from March 18 to April 6, was conducted well before Obama's famous "undivided Jerusalem" comment. Jordan's population is heavily Palestinian, so we can surmise that even before he made his AIPAC speech, he was already viewed with some suspicion in Arab countries.

But here's a question for readers to weigh in on: What does Spain have against John McCain?

 

CINDY

1:32 PM ET

June 13, 2008

Wild guess...

Perhaps based on perception of Obama as one particularly concerned with social justice for oppressed peoples, they think he might be the more empathetic candidate towards ETA?

 

CINDY

4:47 PM ET

June 13, 2008

My bad, read question wrong, so...

Since the question asks about Spanish dislike of McCain (not Obama) and I can't think of any reason for that, perhaps the result's not so much a reflection of disliking McCain as it is that they like Obama, maybe because of Obama's cultural sensitivity quotient.

 

ANTALDANIEL

9:24 AM ET

June 15, 2008

Spain is all change, too

Spain, which had been a traditional, male-dominated Catholic country, for centuries on the loosing side, has gone through a fast economic and social transition after it has joined the EU. It has just re-elected a left-wing government that is all for change: it is feminist, it gives equal rights to gay couples. I think Spain is in for a similar enthusiasm that Obama's supporters seem to feel in the U.S. Remember their defense minister?

Dániel Antal

 

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