The Foreign Service Journal, September 2008

S E P T E M B E R 2 0 0 8 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 37 f Germany were the 51st state of the United States, Barack Obama would not even need to campaign there. According to recent polls, 67 percent of Germans would vote for the sena- tor from Illinois, while only 7 percent would choose John McCain. More than 82 percent of all Germans have confidence in Obama, while just 33 percent feel that way about the senator from Arizona. The excitement is so widespread that Constanze Stelzenmüller, head of the German Marshall Fund in Berlin, calls him the “Dalai Obama” — saying that the only person more revered in Germany is the Dalai Lama. Support for him is very emotional: Obama’s political style of uplifting, inspiring speech- es and his message of unity and hope really appeal to Germans. However, when he expressed his support for the death penalty for child rapists after the June Supreme Court ruling striking it down, many people in Germany were in a state of complete shock. While there was some coverage of his position back in the U.S., all major German papers ran articles on the subject (some on the front page), as well as a flurry of commentaries asking how someone seen as the face of a new, better America could call for such a terrible thing? Politicians from across the German political spec- trum condemned his position. “Obama should work towards abandoning the death penalty, not for expand- ing it, ” said Green Party Leader Claudia Roth. Her remarks were echoed by the head of the most conserv- ative party, the Christian Social Union, Erwin Huber, who said: “The ban on the death penalty must be absolute.” The incident represented the first cooling of the love affair the German public has had with Barack Obama — and the first warning that he might not be able to fulfill the hopes Germans have projected onto him. A Complicated Relationship This level of local interest in a U.S. presidential race is unprecedented. According to the Pew Research Center, 56 percent of the German public follows the contest closely — more than in any other foreign coun- try except Japan and considerably more than in Spain or France. At the same time, only 31 percent of Germans have a favorable view of the U.S., down an astonishing 47 points from only eight years ago. This is the biggest F O C U S O N T H E 2 0 0 8 E L E C T I O N S O BAMAMANIA , G ERMAN S TYLE A RE G ERMANS STARTING TO REALIZE THAT B ARACK O BAMA MIGHT NOT BE ABLE TO FULFILL THE HIGH HOPES THEY HAVE PROJECTED ONTO HIM ? B Y C ORDULA M EYER I Cordula Meyer is a senior correspondent for Der Spiegel, based in Washington, D.C.