Senator Obama’s Berlin speech (see video, images and full text) was seen by a huge success in his campaign. Although campaign speeches are aimed at the electorate, i.e. voting Americans, Obama’s Middle East-Europe trip was meant to show that he will find a common understanding with America’s allies. If you want overlook the key phrases of the speech here is a tag cloud of the big orators transcript. Otherwise I believe that the Atlantic-Community.org is right to assume that this not the beginning of a new transatlantic relationship but return to normalcy, even if it will never be the same, as international relations have changes a lot in the past decade.

Congruently, Barack Obama views American values as universal, and America as the quintessential global leader with a mission to uphold and defend democratic principles in the world. However, this ambition should no longer be singular to the United States, but needs to be shared by all its democratic allies [...] Indeed, Germans firmly share a belief in these values, and it is precisely because Obama, through his charisma and sophistication, is able to restore some of the trust eroded during the last eight years, that he is able to generate so much enthusiasm. Obama’s popularity in Germany is not based on him being the anti-Bush, but on his ability to reaffirm belief in ideals cheapened through the hypocrisy of the Bush administration. Germans favor Obama, not because he will set American foreign policy on a different course, but because they expect him to return it to its traditional path—a constellation theyare comfortable with.

You can play around with this visualization with Many Eyes and read a longer assessment on Stanley’s blog. I think that Senator Obama is the most popular American presidential candidate in Europe, ever.

Update: Kosmopolit’s proposed link is truly great (thank you!). You can have a better look at it on Wordle.