Obama’s Greatest Fans

Europeans do not want a second Bush ever again.

If Europeans could vote in the United States, Obama could be certain of an even greater landslide victory than that of Richard Nixon over George McGovern in 1972. According to opinion polls, a flattering 81 percent of Europeans would vote for Obama, while only 19 percent would vote for Romney.

Thus, Obama’s level of approval is twice as high in Europe as it is in the United States, the Germans being his greatest fans. 97 percent believe that he has done a good job. Even in Poland — traditionally just like Texas, on the ultra-conservative side with an anti-Russian rhetoric — a third would vote for Obama and only 16 percent for Romney.

Where does this sympathy come from for a president who has mostly given Europe the cold shoulder? Perhaps the Europeans did not notice that the Obama administration shifted its focus away from Cold War Atlanticism toward the new areas of interest in Asia.

Principal Geithner

Washington first ignored Europe and then insulted it. The arrogant admonitions during the Euro crisis and the pressure put on Merkel to finally turn on the money-tap should be recalled. As if the halfhearted American economic stimulus package had been an ideal Keynesian strategy. When U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Timothy Geithner came to visit Europe over the summer, he behaved like a narrow-minded principal. He admonished the German government because they had refused to approve an extensive stimulus package.

For the moment, the U.S. government is at least thankful to its German counterpart and to the EU for winning control over the Euro crisis. At least the Europeans did not spark a new global crisis at the time of the election.

Yet, in general, Obama’s team members do not show any more sympathy or understanding for Europe than did their predecessors. Europeans like to overlook all this, even though their love for Obama is certainly less passionate than it was four years ago when they were celebrating him as the “black Kennedy.”

Of course, not everything was bad. The Euro crisis at least showed that the U.S. cares for Europe. Its interactions with Germany were rather quiet — but that is still better than turbulent. After all, the president presented the Medal of Freedom to Chancellor Angela Merkel — though without an apparent reason.

Although the U.S. has depreciated transatlantic relations, Europeans still feel closely connected to America, according to opinion polls. Obama did indeed keep some of the promises that had made Europeans take so kindly to him four years ago: for instance, his commitment to multilateralism and the withdrawal from Iraq. Most importantly, Obama has disbanded the politics of his predecessor, G.W. Bush. That is already sufficient for Europeans to idolize him.

Obama Is Not Bush

Obama is not Bush, but Romney could be: That is the common conviction. During the Bush era, the transatlantic climate reached its lowest point. Europeans were put off by Bush’s militant rhetoric and considered his politics, from Guantanamo to the war in Iraq, to be counterproductive. The Bush administration personally attacked Chancellor Gerhard Schröder and Secretary of State Joschka Fischer, while calling Germany, along with other apparently spineless states, the “old Europe.” Transatlantic differences got so ugly that some observers saw a wave of anti-Americanism roll over the continent; this would further harm European-American relations.

Nonetheless, the high approval ratings for Obama and the U.S. show that it was not anti-Americanism that brought European-American relations down to their lowest point, even though there is still a continuing anti-American sentiment among some Europeans. It was Bush’s politics, language (“axis of evil”) and unilateralism that Europeans rejected, not the U.S. per se.

And yet Obama’s break with the politics of the Bush era is much smaller than it might seem at first glance, especially in the field of anti-terrorism. The Obama administration kept in place the policy of extraditing terrorists to third countries where torture is legal, as is the unlimited imprisonment of suspects. Guantanamo is still running. And Obama’s aggressive stance toward al-Qaida is considered to be a decisive advantage in the election campaign.

Mormon Missionary Romney

Europeans do not really seem to be aware of all this. But would they forget their enthusiasm for Obama even if they knew? Not likely. Some people just insist on seeing Obama as they wish to; take for example the Financial Times in Germany, which believes that Obama and the American Democrats “stand for the politics that we like — social welfare state, extensive health insurance and a foreign policy of rapprochement.” Perhaps the Democrats during the time of George McGovern once stood for such a noble policy, but that was a long time ago.

Of course, the fact that Romney is a stranger to Europeans plays an important role (even though he spent two years in France as a Mormon missionary during the ‘60s), in addition to the fact that almost every time he speaks the result is a slip of the tongue. Does he really want to take up the fight against Russia, as he says, and thus return to the times of the Cold War in Europe? Why does he have to insult the British people because of the Olympic Games when he was only there for sightseeing?

Not even the British, who were the most loyal allies to the Republicans during the Iraq war, would vote for Romney. Only in Israel would he win a majority. In 1972, McGovern at least still won in two states: Massachusetts and the District of Columbia.