Obama’s Austrian fans already celebrate win

Barack Obama is leading the polls. Foto: apa

By Thomas Hochwarter

Can McCain voters shirk pollsters for a shock win?
Team Obama plan Vienna party.

Vienna. The world is loo- king at the USA in view of today’s presidential election there, and Austria is no ex- ception in that regard.

News on Austria spoke with US expats living in Austria about their views of the campaign and the can- didates. We also asked them about their hopes – and possible fears – if Barack Obama or John McCain is elected today.

Clear favourite

The situation ahead of the eagerly-awaited deci- sion on the face of it could hardly be more clear.

On one side, there is 47-year-old Senator Barack Obama, who has had the opportunity to spend more money on his campaign than any other candidate in history.

Vietnam veteran John McCain, the Republican candidate, faces concerns about the state of his health as well as his policies as he struggles to disassociate himself from fellow Repub- lican George W. Bush, who is most likely to go down in history as the country’s least-popular president.

Obama may seem like a shoe-in but polling voter sentiment accurately has been hard with few people admitting they intend to vote for McCain, a problem familiar in Austria where few people admit to pollsters, even in anony- mous telephone surveys, that they intend to vote for either the BZÖ or FPÖ.

Democrat and Obama sympathisers will get to- gether tonight at Vienna’s Lion Rampant pub (Billroth- straße 16), while there is no public Republican get-to- gether planned.

One of those who will attend the Obama party is James H. Glenn, a retired US Foreign Service Officer. The 65-year-old resident of Texas voted for Obama and expects him to win as "the McCain campaign appears to be in chaos.”

Glenn admires Obama for being a "pragmatist who wants what works, not what ideology prescribes.”

Palin controversy

Bridget V. Reddington, 22, from New Jersey is an teaching-assistant in the Austrian capital.

She voted for Obama, and says in regard to Sarah Palin: "I feel as if Palin simply walked in the doors that thousands of feminists before her fought to open. She refers to herself as a feminist – I think she is anything but.”

A country in crisis

But the ongoing war in Iraq and the creation of an effec- tive, universal healthcare system will be top-priority issues for the 44th presi- dent of the United States, whether his name is Barack Hussein Obama II or John McCain III.

Printausgabe vom 03.11.2008