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So the race is on. In spite of the unique character of the 2008 election—particularly the highly competitive, exceedingly long primary battles—the familiar rhythm of American campaigning has now imposed itself on both Republican John McCain and Democrat Barack Obama.

Late summer brought vice presidential selections, four days of Democratic and then Republican hoopla at their nominating conventions, a week of media blather about the “bounce” either received, and now we’ve begun the glide path toward the first debate, a clash over foreign policy and national security issues at the University of Mississippi on Sept. 26.

Out in the wider world, however, there is little appreciation for the cyclical nature of the American political season or its more complicated, surprise-prone rituals—the primaries, the power of state governments to choose ballot types, or the role of “super delegates,” for instance. From the neat constitutional democracies of northern Europe to the rough-and-tumble “new” democracies of sub-Saharan Africa, America’s electoral rituals are viewed with a mix of amazement, amusement, contempt and hope.

Still, whether viewed on an illegal satellite dish in Iran, on a state-controlled Russian newscast, over the broadminded network of the BBC or through the prism of Al Jazeera, our election strikes the citizens of nations smaller than our own as deeply important, not to mention entertaining. Ask any Lilliputian whether he worries where Gulliver’s next foot will fall, and he will tell you it’s just a matter of physics.

Foreign news organizations simply do not devote major resources to the coverage of elections in, say, Germany or Canada. A single correspondent generally will do. But the world dispatched legions of journalists to our political conventions. This past week, the BBC World Service released a poll of 22,000 people around the world on which American candidate they prefer. (They overwhelmingly prefer Obama, but just as overwhelmingly welcome any change from George W. Bush.)

Yet just as our rituals appear different through foreign eyes, our candidates, too, defy categorization. Labels like “war hero” and “reformer,” “liberal” and “conservative,” “experienced” or “groundbreaking” lose their meaning as soon as the conversation leaves American airspace.

For instance, the idea that the GOP’s nomination of a woman as vice president is notable would be absurd to a broad swath of humanity, from the British (Margaret Thatcher, prime minister, 1979-91), to the Germans (Chancellor Angela Merkel, since 2005), to Filipinos (president, 1986-92) to Pakistan (Benazir Bhutto, prime minister, 1993-96).

McCain’s age is another non-issue. Francois Mitterrand, the French president from 1981 to 1995, was 79 when he left office. Yasuo Fakuda, who recently announced his resignation as Japan’s prime minister, and some of those vying to replace him are older. Winston Churchill, the very mention of whose name demands genuflection from American politicians of both stripes, won election to a new term as prime minister in 1951 at the ripe old age of 77.

The idea that Obama might somehow favor Muslims, too, falls into this category. Arab journalists I spoke with at the Democratic convention in Denver dismissed him as “anti-Arab,” parroting the conventional wisdom that all American leaders are beholden to pro-Israeli positions.

Arabs don’t like McCain’s perceived willingness to use force, but they view Republicans as slightly more likely to take a pragmatic view of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. And they are deeply angry at Obama’s comment that he would never divide Jerusalem, a position on the Israeli-Palestinian issue that not only stakes out a more hawkish pro-Israeli position than McCain but outdoes either the Bush administration or the Israeli government itself.

Another label that doesn’t translate well is McCain’s reputation as a war hero. It goes rightly unchallenged in America, and even Democrats are at pains to “honor his service.” Abroad, however, especially in countries that have been on the receiving end of American bombs through history—Germany, Serbia, Pakistan and, of course, Vietnam—that reaction is not as automatic.

This is particularly true in authoritarian states, places like China, North Korea and Cuba, where the untidiness inherent in the American democratic process is viewed with deep suspicion. In all these places—and to a lesser extent in pseudo-democracies like Iran, Russia, Egypt and Zimbabwe, to name a few—arguing that these uncertainties pose a threat to national unity or public safety is a key justification for repression. As Chinese President Hu Jintao put it at the most recent Communist Party congress, “People’s democracy is the lifeblood of socialism.” Good luck finding a right to free speech or assembly in that line.

In many of these countries, the image propagated in state-controlled media and the overwrought speeches of senior leaders is of an America that is irredeemably militaristic, selfish, depraved, callous to its own poor and racist toward its minority groups.

In that sense, one of the greatest diversions in terms of how our candidates are viewed abroad might be over the conventional American wisdom that our foes would prefer Obama’s diplomatic openness to “hawkish” McCain.

In fact, the differences have blurred, what with American troops scheduled to leave Iraq in 2011 by mutual agreement now and with McCain and Obama trying to outdo each other with regard to the number of additional U.S. troops they would send to Afghanistan.

Indeed, at this point, what greater nightmare could America visit upon regimes that keep themselves in power by casting us as racist or anti-Muslim or elitist than electing an African-American whose father was a Muslim and whose mother used food stamps to our highest office? In the war that really matters—the war of ideas—that’s the nuclear option.

This article appears in full on CFR.org by permission of its original publisher. It was originally available here.