Nothing in recent American politics has been followed in Europe as obsessively as the Democratic primary. Barack Obama's victory has been universally greeted with the same gesture. Two hands are pointed together in prayer. Please, please let it be true, let him be president. Polls have yet to appear, but I imagine Obama beats John McCain by a factor of ninety-nine to one in the global electorate.
It is hard for Americans to appreciate the sheer, bruising weariness of being a pro-American abroad this past decade, for reasons that need no enumerating. As a result it is impossible to exaggerate the impact that an Obama presidency would have. To every cry of hatred against America, to every antagonism, every complaint, every sneer, Barack Obama is an instant, one-man rebuttal.
He has acquired the status of total image salve. His mere smile flashes round the world a promise of a new America. There is no point is protesting the implausibility of much of this, the danger of unrealistic hopes and unfulfillable dreams. It is plain fact. At this stage, image is all.
Say this to many Americans and they reply, what has it to do with you? Our president is our business. The answer is that Americans have not one vote but two. One is for the USA, the other is held in proxy for the rest of the world. It is a vote for Iraqis, Israelis, Afghans, Somalis, for European merchants, African farmers, Chinese industrialists, Latin American drug lords, bankers, lawyers and internet users.
Every country on Earth is ruled in some sense by America. Almost all are disenfranchised. Some aspect of their lives - perhaps whether they live at all - depends on a franchise enjoyed by a select minority, Americans. When a president claims to speak "for the west" or "for the free world", that world replies, by whose consent? Who asked us? We are expected just to wait on tenterhooks to see whether "our" candidate wins.
That is why I plead with American friends to think not just who is best for America but who is best for the wider cosmopolis to which American presidents, for better or worse, claim to lead. This week there has been no doubt. It really does not matter what Obama says or does. It matters only what his candidature has come to represent. He would transform the standing and moral authority of a nation that seems to revel in being disliked by others and, I sense lately, even by itself. He is already a global phenomenon.