Obamania - Has the Campaign Reached Berlin?

Bildunterschrift: Großansicht des Bildes mit der Bildunterschrift:  The hype surrounding the arrival in Germany of the presumptive democratic candidate in this Autumn’s US presidential election had all the hallmarks of a rock star revival. Many hopes have been pinned on Barack Obama: The hope of a stronger transatlantic relationship, hopes for a better world. A presidential candidate has never been received with quite so much enthusiasm. Some 76 percent of Germans wish Barack Obama to become President of the United States.

Bildunterschrift: Großansicht des Bildes mit der Bildunterschrift:  While the euphoria around the presumptive candidate is in full swing here in Germany, the de-mystification process has already begun in the US. Hiss opponents accuse Mr. Obama, in contrast to his Republican Party counterpart John McCain, of lacking foreign policy experience. His current trip Bildunterschrift: Großansicht des Bildes mit der Bildunterschrift:  overseas, with a speech to the masses in Berlin, is designed, to play that inexperience down. Not all of Mr. Obama’s supporters agree with the trip either. There are even voices calling him arrogant, accusing Mr. Obama of efforts to put himself on par with Presidents John F. Kennedy, Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton.

Bildunterschrift: Großansicht des Bildes mit der Bildunterschrift:  Barack Obama’s visit is a double-edged sword. The candidate is trying to please two camps. Here in Germany, many want to cheer on a possible future president who will end the war in Iraq and listen to the German and European worries. Back at home, people want to see a patriotic American, one who defends the interests of the United States. Too much cheering over here, could have a negative influence on votes at home.

What do you think? Obamania: Has the Campaign Reached Berlin?
Send an email with your questions and comments to: quadriga@dw-world.de

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Our guests were:

Markus Feldenkirchen – Before taking on the duties of deputy head of the Berlin office for the news weekly "DER SPIEGEL," Feldenkirchen spent five years as political correspondent for the Berlin-based daily "Der Tagesspiegel," worked as reporter and presenter for WDR "Radio Eins" as well as contributing to "Stern TV," "Phoenix," and ARD public television’s New York studio. Markus Feldenkirchen studied political science, history and literature in Bonn and New York. He also attended journalism school in Munich. Feldenkirchen has been awarded the Axel Springer prize for young journalists, the Körber Foundation’s journalism prize as well as the Arthur F. Burns prize.

Ian Johnson is a reporter/editor at The Wall Street Journal. He was born in 1962 in Montreal, Canada, and emigrated to the U.S. with his family in 1977. He went to high school and college in Florida and worked at The Orlando Sentinel. In 1986 he went to Taiwan to study Chinese and then to Berlin to freelance and get his master's. He covered the fall of the Berlin Wall and German unification. He received his M.A. in Chinese studies in 1993.

From 1992 to 1994 Johnson covered business for the Baltimore Sun, moving to its Beijing bureau in 1994. In 1997 he joined The Wall Street Journal's Beijing bureau, where he covered macroeconomics. In 1999 he became acting bureau chief, overseeing the other five reporters in the bureau and covering the politics and society beats. His stories about the Falun Gong protests resulted in several journalism honors including a Pulitzer Prize in 2001 and an Overseas Press Club award for foreign reporting. Today Ian Johnson is the Berlin correspondent for the Wall Street Journal.

David Patrician– A Fulbright scholar in Germany since 2007, Patrician has worked for the public WDR network, produced his own programs, in which he traveled around Germany noting an American perspective. David Patrician spent 3 years with the Voice of America in Washington, D.C. Before that he spent six years as a television presenter for a South Korean broadcaster, where he was also an observer on US foreign and domestic policy as well as covering the 2002 Soccer World Cup.