Europe is Kerry country, and folks like Heike Warmuth reckon they have a chance to spoil President Bush's bid for a second term.
Even as Republicans fete the American leader at their national convention in New York, people across Europe - where Bush is often derided as reckless and ignorant - are rallying to the cause of lifting Democratic contender John Kerry to victory. "The choice of a U.S. president is not something that affects America alone," said Warmuth, a founder of "Europeans against Bush," an Austrian Web-based initiative designed to swing undecided Americans toward Kerry.
"American politics affect the whole world, whether we're talking war or peace or the international economy," said Warmuth, a member of Austria's Green Party. Not all Europeans are as active in trying to unseat Bush as Warmuth, who spent thousands of dollars of her own money earlier this summer in New York City as a Kerry campaign volunteer. But her anti-Bush inclination reflects the overwhelming sentiment throughout Western Europe, a region where politicians are often admired for eloquence, where there is deep anger at what is seen as American arrogance in Iraq and on other issues, and where contempt of Bush's perceived cowboy persona and mispronunciations runs strong.
"In no way would I vote for Bush," said Christa Eden, a secretary in Frankfurt, Germany. "He thinks that everything he does is right and tries to push it on the rest of the world."
Among the established democracies of Western Europe, America's foreign policy and pop culture pre-eminence worldwide had left many citizens resentful on a deeper level - even before the U.S. invasion of Iraq turned public sentiment overwhelmingly against Bush.
http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGBM37TOMYD.html
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