While you were sleeping...

While you were sleeping, Spain, like the rest of the world, was waking up to find out how you voted yesterday. Like many US citizens, Super Tuesday, pronounced something like sooperrtoosdai in Spanish, has been on the minds of the public (or at least the editors of Spain´s major newspapers) since the primaries began earlier this year.

(Today´s headline from Spain´s leading newspaper, El Pais, reads: "The US Ushers in a New Era in Politics." Similar to his treatment in the American press, Obama´s image has become synonymous with the end of politics as usual.) *All photographs in this post are from El Pais.

It would be incorrect, however, to mistake this zeal for some kind of unrequited love of Spain for American politics. The current Zapatero administration gained popular approval by challenging the Bush administration and pulling all support from the Iraq War. Likewise, if you were to ask the majority of Spaniards what they thought about the US election four years ago, you´d likely hear echoed the same complaints made at home about politics as usual.

(An equally bold headline accompanies this photograph, which occupies more than a quarter of this two-page spread: "The Duel between Democrats Polarizes the United States").

Foreign coverage of the primaries is just one example that the 2008 presidential election will be anything but politics as usual. Based on print media alone, it seems that Spain, like the United States, is also casting a ballot in this election for an entirely new brand of politics. Suddenly, a country as famous for its cynicism as it is for its tapas now appears equally enchanted as the US by the rhetoric of change and the possibilty of a new beginning.

(Despite their concern about a divided American public, for many European newspapers, the era of Republican politics is already over. Coverage of McCain´s campaign received scant attention on last pages of the entire six-page spread).

Although, maybe Spain's treatment isn't so surprising. In fact, maybe while we in the US were all still asleep, Spain, like the rest of the world, was already dreaming about a new day in American politics.