Obama’s edge?

[Clive]

At this stage in the game, I have no idea whether Mr O. would make a good president. I do like the cut of his jib, as they say, even allowing for Michael Barone’s absolutely reasonable point about his lack of experience. I was struck by an observation a commenter left on my blog the other day. I hadn’t looked at the issue in this light before:

I think that in one of the most important aspects, Obama is the most experienced of the lot. We have a serious problem when neither the political class nor the public have any kind of real sense of how their country looks from the outside. Obama, with his childhood years in Indonesia and his African roots, has an enormous edge in attaining the insider-outsider’s perspective that would be invaluable at a time like the present.

Now, I’d never expect Americans to vote for the candidate who wins the overseas beauty contest. (As the Guardian discovered in 2004, US voters don’t take kindly to being talked down to. Quite right, too.) But given the Bush administration’s truly dire record on public diplomacy, a president who acts as if he lives on the same planet as the rest of us might be a good idea.