Florida will be a make or break state for John McCain next Tuesday. Today 30 percent of all Florida’s Hispanics are Cuban. Hispanics make up 20 percent of the Sunshine State. Both candidates plan to continue with the embargo on Cuba, but there is one main difference in their plans with Cuba. Obama said he would be willing to meet with President Raul Castro without preconditions. He also would ease restrictions on family-related travel and on money Cuban-Americans want to send to their families on the island. McCain has called the offer to meet the wrong idea, but also has said he favors easing restrictions if Cuba moves toward democracy. The state's large Cuban-American electorate is an important group for the GOP. It is being projected that while older immigrants from Cuba will continue to vote Republican, younger Cuban-Americans are now open to the Democrats and Obama.
22 countries in a BBC World Service Poll, preferred that Obama be elected US president instead of Republican John McCain. Obama is preferred by a four to one margin on average across the 22,000 people polled.
The margin that favors Obama ranges from 9% in India to 82% in Kenya. On average 49% prefer Obama to 12% preferring McCain. Nearly four in 10 people are indifferent. It would make sense that Africans would support Obama because of his lineage and family but also because of his views on Darfur and Mugabe.
The poll also explored the expected impact of the US election. In 17 of the 22 countries surveyed, most people feel if the Illinois senator were elected president, American relations with the world would improve. The majority opinion in most countries felt that if McCain won the election, that US world standing would remain the same.
The countries most optimistic that an Obama presidency would improve relations are some of America’s closest allies like Canada (69%), France (62%), Germany (61%), United Kingdom (54%), Italy (64%) - as well as Australia (62%) and the African countries Kenya (87%) and Nigeria (71%). [1]
Many countries have no opinion or preference in the election. This was the case in Russia, where 75 percent do not express a preference between the candidates, but also in Turkey (63%) and Egypt (61%). It is surprising that Russians do not care about our next president considering the huge stand off in late August with the rest of the world and the differences in response from each candidate.
When asked whether the election of Barack Obama would change their view of the United States, 46 percent said it would while 27 percent said that it would not.
The US public agrees with the rest of the world, Americans also feel that an Obama presidency would improve US relations. 46 percent of Americans feel relations to improve with Obama’s election compared to 30 percent with McCain.
A total of 23,531 people in Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Egypt, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Kenya, Lebanon, Mexico, Nigeria, Panama, the Philippines, Poland, Russia, Singapore, Turkey, the UAE, Britain and the United States were interviewed face-to-face or by telephone in July and August 2008 for the poll.
With an ever-growing China that continues to get stronger, many Asians feel that the US is the most important security partner in the region. John McCain and Barack Obama have not laid out a foreign-policy in the region, and policymakers in Asia appear to expect them to before the election. Both candidates have experience in the area. McCain was an American POW in Hanoi and Obama went to grade school in Indonesia. The number of Asians in the United States has grown 25 percent in the last seven years, to 15 million. Asian voters nationwide appear to be favoring Obama in greater numbers than the 54 percent who voted for John Kerry in 2004.
This could be due to President Bush's unpopularity, the economic implosion, or the fact that Obama has ties to Asians by the people in his staff. There is also a new generation of Asian-Americans that tend to vote Democratic. In the past, many Asians have voted Republican because of the party's record of fighting Communism and family values.
A Vietnamese group from northern Virginia, a key battle ground state, recently endorsed McCain. Some Asians favor McCain because of his military service, Vietnamese imprisonment, adopted daughter from Asia and his support for free trade and visa waivers.
Regardless of who wins, Asians at home and the Eastern world will be important issues in the next regime.
[1] http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/09/09/2360240.htm?section=world
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