U.S. candidates seek out voters abroad

(CM, tell me how you and your organization are making the most of his travels internationally?) It’s about having a dialogue with Americans living overseas and so it’s a good opportunity for Obama to travel to these countries and meet with our allies. So in Berlin on Thursday, for example, we’ll be doing some voter registration. (CD, Obama is getting good press for this trip so how does your organization approach that?) Our strategy is like CM said to get out the vote. Our prime goal is to get Americans overseas to vote and of course we support the principals of our candidate and we don’t worry about what Obama is doing. (What’s the lay of the land out there? CD, are there places where you can count on a strong Republican vote?) CD: traditionally the vote overseas has always been highly Republican because of the military and professionals who don’t want higher taxes. That’s why the outreach by Democrats Abroad is so strong. CM: I’m surprised that Republicans are the ones who are voting overseas, I think it’s just hard to tell. One day we’re hoping to get a handle on that, but we know around 1 million absentee ballots were requested in 2006. We know we’ve registered a lot of overseas voters and we also know that many people are concerned about the US image abroad and that US prestige has disappeared internationally. (CD, how have the polls which show a lower regard of the US internationally impacted your ability to attract Republicans Abroad?) The same thing was said in 2004 but you’ve seen the change. Sarkozy is conservative, Angela Merkel in Germany�so that’s nothing new.