Political culture 101

Barack Obama was recently in Berlin, and many Germans are still reeling from the experience. Whether or not I think his stop as a rock star (instead of a politician) was necessary (or even a good campaign tactic) is not the point of this post...



Instead...



I read this article reflecting on Obama's speech, and was surprised at how much I learned about German political culture... some of the nuances that one just kind of "gets", but doesn't really think about.



http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,568876,00.html



Is there a better/worse political culture in this scenario? Who knows.


What is clear, however, is what they said that, even for America, Obama is pretty much one-of-a-kind politician.

Barack in Berlin!

http://my.barackobama.com/page/content/berlinvideo/

The democratic presidential candidate at a place we were just over a month ago... the Siegessaeule (Victory column) in Berlin!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_pictures/7523892.stm

The Germans are crazy about Barack, experiencing full-on Obamamania.... and they showed up in full force to prove that point. There were over 200,000 people there to support him... and the speech was also shown live on German television. Over 75% of Germans would vote for Obama if they had the chance. McCain has won only 11-13% of their hearts and minds.

What do we think, a real love or just a strong pendulum swing away from Bush?