Obama’s face on a lottery ticket… in Colombia

AFP

Since the Obama campaign bought up the airwaves, the senator’s face has been plastered pretty much everywhere: TV screens, T-shirts, posters, buttons…

Well now he is on a lottery ticket, too. 

Here’s the interesting bit: Those tickets are in Colombia, usually thought to be Republican-friendly turf.

But read below the tickets’ Obama-bearing surface, and you strike a bit of gold. In their last debate, John McCain accused Barack Obama, who supports adding preconditions to the U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement, of not understanding the South American country. But it seems that Colombians don’t have the same reservations. According to the Gallup World Poll, Colombians prefer Obama by 22 percentage points. And the country’s president, Álvaro Uribe, referred to the Democratic nominee as the presumed winner yesterday.

The lottery tickets are hardly a scientific way to gauge Colombian public opinion. But they just might be a barometer of the excitement level that the Illinois senator has produced, particularly among the younger generation.

“We picked Obama’s portrait for our lottery because we’re always looking for somebody people are raving about,” a lottery official in Colombia told the AFP.

Besides, Colombians’ feelings about the United States have actually varied dramatically during the Bush presidency. Put it this way: If it were a bit further north, Colombia would be one of those swing states Chuck Todd is always talking about.

(Hat tip: On Deadline)