The world leader endorsement tally

I think we can add Hugo Chavez to the list of Obama endorsements that Ohioans won’t be seeing in the president’s campaign ads: 

"If I were American, I’d vote for Obama," Chavez said in a televised interview that aired Sunday.

The Venezuelan leader called Obama "a good guy" and said if the U.S. president were a Venezuelan, "I think … he’d vote for Chavez."

Not surprisingly, Romney supporters are gleefully publicizing the endorsement.

No other leaders have have been quite as blatant in picking a candidate in the U.S. election. After all, they’re going to have to deal with whoever gets elected and generally duck the question when asked. (See Hamid Karzai’s diplomatic answer to Wolf Blitzer: " It’s for the American people to decide their president. I like them both and have worked well with both.") But a number of other leaders have dropped some hints about who they’d rather see in the White House in November. 

Probably leaning Obama:

Francois Hollande: The French president was not exactly subtle when asked about the U.S. election in New York last week. "I’m careful to say nothing because you can imagine if a Socialist were to support one of the two candidates that might be to his detriment," he said. He then quipped: : “So I suppose I should endorse Mitt Romney. But I won’t.”

Hollande may be a socialist, but Obama fandom seems to cut accross party lines in France. Nicolas Sarkozy set a precedent for this sort of thing, when he essentially endorsed Obama in 2008.  He also said of Obama’s mideast peace efforts in March, "President Obama, who is a very great president, won’t take the initiative before he’s re-elected — and I hope he will be."

David Cameron: Conservatives on either side of the pond hoping for Thatcher-Reagan II if Romney is elected might be disappointed. From all the signals we’ve gotten, Cameron seems to be an Obama man. Visiting the United States in March, Cameron praised the president for his  “strength, moral authority, and wisdom" as well as his "strong and beautiful words." The British tabloids had a field day over Cameron’s "fawning" after taking in a basketball game with the president and U.S. conservatives complained about Camerons"unprecedented" Republican leaders while in Washington. Then came the GOP candidate’s visit to London and the series of gaffes that came to be known as "Romneyshambles." Cameron, not surprisingly, differed with Romney’s doubts about whether Britain could successfully come together to "celebrate the Olympic moment," saying, "We’ll show the world we’ve not only come together as a United Kingdom but are extremely good at welcoming people from across the world." (London mayor Boris Johnson was a lot more blunt.)

Vladimir Putin: Putin was the only foreign leader mentioned by name in Romney’s convention speech, so it makes sense that he takes the U.S. race a bit personally. The Russian president suggested in an interview with the satellite network RT that Obama would probably be easier to work with than the candidate who has described his country as America’s "number one gepolitical foe." “Is it possible to find a solution to the problem, if current President Obama is re-elected for a second term? Theoretically, yes,”Putin said. He continued: "My feeling is that he is a very honest man, and that he sincerely wants to make many good changes. But can he do it? Will they let him do it?”

He has also paid a backhanded compliment to Romney: “I’m grateful to him for formulating his stance so clearly because he has once again proven the correctness of our approach to missile defense problems… The most important thing for us is that even if he doesn’t win now, he or a person with similar views may come to power in four years. We must take that into consideration while dealing with security issues for a long perspective.”

Probably leaning Romney:

Benjamin Netanyahu: Romney has made his support for Netanyahu, whom he has known since the 1970s, a centerpiece of his campaign. Anonymous sources close to Netanyahu say would prefer to see Romney in the White House. As Romney notes in his now infamous hidden camera fundraising speech, some of his campaign consultants also worked for Netanyahu and the two share a number of major donors as well. All the same, Netanyahu has denied that his recent comments asserting that Obama has no "moral right" to prevent Israel from attacking Iran were not meant to undermind the adminsitration. "What’s guiding me is not the election in the United States but the centrifuges in Iran,"he recently told an Israeli newspaper. This hasn’t really satisfied his American critics. 

Donald Tusk/Lech Walesa: As recently as 2011, despite past disagreements over issues like the planned missile defense system in Poland, Tusk told Obama  “We feel that you are one of us” during a visit to Poland. But this May, Tusk responded with rare vitriol to a reference made by the president to "Polish death camps" — as opposed to Nazi death camps located in Poland — during a White House ceremony. Tusk said the remarks smacked of " ignorance, lack of knowledge, bad intentions" and rejected the White House’s explanation that the president has simply "misspoke." Tusk met with Romney during the GOP candidate’s trip to Poland in July but hasn’t said anything that can be construed as an endorsement of either side.

Former Polish President and anticommunist icon Lech Walesa was not so subtle, telling Romney, “I wish you to be successful because this success is needed to the United States, of course, but to Europe and the rest of the world, too." Walesa had refused to meet with Obama in 2011. Romney has made confronting Russia a centerpiece of his foreign policy and has accused Obama of abandoning Poland in the name of the "reset" with the Kremlin. Though feelings toward the U.S. haven’t really changed much in Poland in recent years. 

Leaning Robot:

Fidel Castro:Back in 2008, Castro called Obama  "more intelligent, refined, and even-handed" than John McCain. But this time around, he has argued that a robot would do a better job preventing "a war that would end the life of our species". (Jokes about his personality aside, Castro’s no fan of Mitt Romney. He says Republicans have "more nuclear arms on their backs than ideas for peace in their heads.") Really, he just seems excited about the robot idea, writing,  "I’m sure 90 percent of voting Americans, especially Hispanics, blacks, and the growing number of impoverished middle class, would vote for the robot."

Am I missing any endorsements or near endorsements? Write them in the comments.