I don’t generally want to mire this blog in politics — it’s really a travel journal.  But Obama’s victory is big enough that it does actually end up being a travel observation.

As about 52% of the US celebrates Obama’s victory, Europe is celebrating too.  Almost everybody we’ve talked to here in Spain is an Obama supporter.  (The one exception being an Indian expat who thought that McCain would be better for outsourcing to India.)

We haven’t seen victory parties in the streets, but you can tell that people are aware and are happy.  As I walked out this morning to buy groceries for breakfast, the patrons of the bar on the corner were intently watching a Spanish news forum TV show, clearly discussing Obama.  The headline of El Mundo was about Obama making history, and the snarky radio programs are (reportedly) saying things like, “US votes to lift itself out of the dark ages”.  The BBC noted that while the race might have been close in the US, if it had been up to the rest of the world, it would have been Obama hands-down, no contest.  The very nice cleaning lady at our apartment complex was happy to talk about Obama and effused about how great a change this is.  (At least, that’s what I was able to extract from her conversation with my meager Spanish.)

I’m happy that they’re happy and it’s kind-of neat to see.  But it’s also a bit sobering to realize how much impact the US has, and how much Bush’s unilateralism has frustrated so many people that we really want to be our friends.  The fact that this many people are paying this much attention to the election of a different country’s leader is kind of a bad sign.  When was the last time you paid this much attention to the election of some other country’s leader, or felt personal emotion about the outcome?  I don’t think I ever have, and I’m guessing it goes back to the cold war, at best, for most people.