By ALI KOTARUMALOS / AP WRITER
JAKARTA—When Sri Murtiningsi asked her third-grade students what they wanted to be when they grew up, some said they wanted to be doctors and another a pilot. Then one curly-haired boy raised his hand: Barack Obama said his dream was to be president.
Forty years later Murtiningsi—like the rest of the world—is watching closely as Americans prepare to head to the polls Tuesday in a historic election that could change the way the US is viewed across the globe.
Many believe Obama’s strong international experience would go a long way in helping repair damage caused by the unpopular US-led war in Iraq, with recent opinion polls from more than 70 nations favoring him a resounding three to one over Republican candidate, John McCain.
“Obama the best hope for US revival,” an editorial in The Australian Financial Review said Monday, arguing that “the world craves American leadership and never more so than now.”
Few if any in the sleepy Japanese coastal town of Obama—which translates as “little harbor”—would disagree. Images of the Democratic candidate adorn banners along a main shopping street and preparations for an election-day victory party were in full swing Monday.
Koichi Inoue, who makes traditional Japanese sweet bean cakes, said his factory was working at double normal production because he had promised free handouts for every customer if Obama won.
“It looks like he is going to win from the polls,” he said, “so I’ve got to be ready.”
Interest in the US election is high in Vietnam as well, in part because many people know McCain was shot down in Hanoi while flying an A-4 Skyhawk during a 1967 bombing run and then held prisoner of war for more than five years.
As a US senator in the 1990s, he played a key role in helping normalize relations between the two countries.
“McCain is someone who understands Vietnam,” said Phan Manh Tien, 54, a retired soldier and truck driver, though even he prefers Obama because he considers the Democrat, who opposed the Iraq war from the outset, less hawkish.
The mood at the Indonesian elementary school where Obama studied for two years, meanwhile, was especially upbeat Monday with a crowd of 500 offering prayers for their former student at an early morning flag-raising ceremony.
Former teachers, classmates and friends fondly remember the then-chubby 8-year-old as a hardworking, good-natured and, to their amusement, sometimes naughty child.
“I taught him few bad words in Indonesian,” said childhood friend, Rully Dassad, who still lives near the school in an upscale neighborhood in the capital, describing how students would burst into laughter when the young Obama mimicked him. “But he was a very good sport about it.”
Though she is now 69, the memories Murtiningsi has of the boy she knew as Barry are still strong.
She describes standing in front of her class of third graders one Monday morning and telling students that when she was young, her dream was to be a teacher.
“You too should follow your dreams,” she said, asking the children what they wanted to be. Six wanted to be doctors, Murtiningsi recalled, four businessmen and one a pilot. “Barry was the only one who said he wanted to be president.”
“I hope his dream comes true.”
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