The World Votes

As I mentioned in my last election-related post, I've been paying close attention to the international coverage of the election, and the global community's opinions of the candidates. Well, yesterday a pretty great piece came out in Dagens Nyheter, Sweden's most prestigious daily newspaper, showing how McCain and Obama performed in opinion polls taken in countries around the world. As my mom pointed out in a telephone conversation last night, at the end of the day these polls don't make a damn bit of difference, because the international community isn't voting, but still. It's interesting stuff. The results I'm about to cite were compiled from research done on November 1 by the BBC, the Economist, Gallup, Reader's Digest and Synovate Global Opinion Panels.

Polling was done in: the U.S., Canada, Mexico, Costa Rica, Panama, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Brazil, Chile, Uruguay, Colombia, Argentina, Peru, Paraguay, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, France, Germany, England, Italy, Poland, Turkey, Russia, Georgia, Kenya, Uganda, South Africa, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Mali, Sierra Leone, Botswana, Burundi, Rwanda, Madagascar, Liberia, Ghana, Nigeria, Benin, the Philippines, Loas, Cambodia, Indonesia, Japan, India, South Korea, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Lebanon, Palestine, Singapore, Bangladesh, China, Pakistan and Australia.That's a pretty comprehensive view of the world.

So, without further ado, drumroll, please.... The compiled results from all the countries listed above:

49% for Obama, 12% for McCain, and 39% undecided.

Europe, Asia, Australia and Africa showed overwhelming support for Obama, with country-by-country results in the 70% range. Interestingly, the countries where McCain garnered the most support were Georgia, the Philippines, Laos and Cambodia. I think the Georgians support him because of that anti-Russia comment he made during the second debates: "When I hear the name Putin, three letters come to mind: K. G. B!"

Finally, I'd like to draw your attention to this nifty polling site I just found, iftheworldcouldvote.com. It was started by two guys in Iceland, and at the time I wrote this, they had collected nearly 763,000 votes from 212 countries. Click on the link above to see the results for yourself.