Obama Takes Europe by Storm

BERLIN, Germany, Jan. 8, 2008 — -- Americans enthralled by Barack Obama's sudden rise to the top of the political heap will have plenty of company when they tune in later today for the New Hampshire primary results.

Europeans, who typically have little interest in U.S. presidential primary contests, are likely to tune in as well.

"After Iowa much of Europe wants to know more about Barack Obama," said Christoph von Marschall, Washington bureau chief for Germany's Der Tagesspiegel newspaper and author of the book "Barack Obama, The Black Kennedy."

"Most Europeans and certainly many Germans know very little about Obama, but he's really captured their imaginations."

Obama's popularity has soared in Europe since his startling win in Iowa, with European newspapers and television networks from Stockholm to Berlin to London now filled with images of the Illinois senator.

In Paris, stories about Obama replaced President Nicolas Sarkozy's love life on the front pages of the newspapers Le Figaro, Libération and Le Monde, which on the day after the Iowa caucuses proclaimed: "The Greater America opts for the New Man."

At a news conference today in Paris, Sarkozy said he's also following the U.S. elections closely. In between fielding questions about his romance with French model Carla Bruni, Sarkozy said he has met with Obama, but would not hint at who he was backing. "It's not me who decides," he told reporters.

London dailies followed suit. "Race reshaped by the son of Kenyan goatherd," blared The Times of London, which, along with the Daily Telegraph, The Independent and The Guardian, featured large photos of Obama in front-page articles. Multipage spreads adorned the inside of top-selling British newspapers.

Here in Germany, where many were surprised to see Sen. Hillary Clinton place third in Iowa, major newspapers printed headlines comparing Obama with John F. Kennedy, still a revered figure in Germany and particularly in Berlin. A headline in The Berliner Morgenpost this weekend screamed "The New Kennedy." The tabloid newspaper Bild, the largest selling news daily in the country, went with, "This Black American Has Become the New Kennedy!"