As many posters have noted, it appears that folks in the Western European nations are perplexed about the lack of overwhelming support for Obama, especially after the Bush presidency.
This article attempts to enlighten those overseas readers as to why Obama isn't running away with the election, and to try and provide some insights to Western Europeans in what would appear to be odd USA political sentiments:
It's been remarked that the biggest difference between Americans and Europeans is religion: ignorant Americans cling to faith; enlightened Europeans long ago embraced the liberating power of reason. Yet here's an odd thing about this election. Europeans are asking Americans to take a leap of faith, to break the chains of empiricism and embrace the possibility of the imagination.
The fact is that a vote for Mr Obama demands uncritical subservience to the irrational, anti-empirical proposition that the past holds no clues about the future, that promise is wholly detached from experience. The second-greatest story ever told, perhaps.
Barack Obama the speechmaker is being rumbled | Gerard Baker - Times Online
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