Perhaps as much as its friends around the world, Africa is especially interested in how the upcoming American elections will pan out with a number tuning in to watch the Presidential debate on September 26, 2008 (which almost didn't happen). Blogger and Ushahidi co-founder Ory Okolloh encourages Americans to really think about their choices and the potential outcomes by participating in the “Dear American Voter Project”:

“Dear American Voter” is inviting you to be a part of a global dialogue featuring responses from around the world to the question, “What should Americans think about as they cast their ballot? ” (Uumm…if you vote for McCain…goodbye USA, hello Russia and China).

Meanwhile, Blackyard notes that Barack Obama's performance at the debate appears to have given him a slight boost in the Gallup Polls. Everest Chiali wrote about the night's exchange in Swahili.

But there are other concerns as well. Siasa Duni suggests that the McCain-Palin ticket suffers from a lack of transparency and wonders if Sarah Palin is being protected from scrutiny by advisers who recognize that she isn't ready for serious questions from reporters, especially after one of Palin's first national interviews with Katie Couric drew an uproar of criticism when Palin embellished her own diplomatic record as Governor of Alaska:

In order to minimize the fallout from the Hail Mary selection of Ms. Palin, the Republican presidential campaign organizers have been limiting Ms. Palin’s exposure to scrutiny. While reporters are allowed to ask her questions, she’s never placed in a situation where she has to answer. In the past four weeks, I have only seen two reporters who have been blessed with access to Ms. Palin. There was the much ballyhooed interview with Charles Gibson of ABC News who was careful to handle Ms. Palin with the softest of kid gloves, even though he still managed to expose her as having limited-to-no understanding of international issues with a question about the Bush Doctrine and its interpretation (America has the right to preemptively attack other nations perceived as threatening).

Angry African likens America's current dilemma to gangs terrorizing a neighborhood:

So you got a guy who was a bit stupid but you liked having him around for a barbeque. Never a good reason to select him, but hey, there you go. You thought, “How bad can it get?” And boy did it get bad. He started fights with neighbouring communities even though they did nothing to your community. Oh, they talked tough, but you knew their community is way to weak to do anything. But he started fighting them in any case. Instead of those guys who kept on throwing bombs over your fence. The fights started sucking you dry and the place started falling apart. The houses started to crack, the lights went off in the streets, and the roads are falling to pieces. Basically your little community is just not the same anymore. And almost everyone agrees that this guy sucked big time. He is not coming to the next barbeque. It’s time to select someone else to run the show and fix up the place again.

So it has come down to two guys you can vote for. One is a guy who doesn’t look a lot like you, he is a bit young, tell you he has all these big ideas to make it better, but also tells you that you will have to pull your weight to make it better. Now he might be a bit shaky.

“About 60 percent of Cameroonians I spoke to is in favor of having Barack Obama, an African American, to become the first black president. They hope that if he becomes the first black president of the world’s most powerful nation, the blacks would be proud of their color. The other 40 percent that I talked to they think that it is a Republican (party) ploy to get Hillary (Clinton) out of the way because Hillary could have been a tough competitor to (Senator) McCain because they say the Americans have what they call the redneck. They don’t think that the rednecks would want to vote a black man come November,” said Nkemayang Paul Foanyi, a newspaper publisher in Limbe, Cameroon.

From Kampala, reporter Grace Matsiko of the Daily Monitor, one of Uganda’s independent daily newspapers, said Ugandans received the historic news of Obama’s victory with a lot of enthusiasm to the point that some have already begun cashing in on the Obama euphoria.

“People feel that he is part of the changes in the global politics. But then they are probably cautious will he make it when the U.S. holds their election. Some people feel he’s too much of a populist. But this does not downplay their support for him. And surprisingly this afternoon I saw some people selling the Barack Obama posters. I think some people are trying to cash in on that excitement by printing Obama posters and selling them at something like half a dollar,” Matsiko said.

Joi Idam, assistant secretary of the Nigerian Union of Journalists, Abuja Chapter said Nigerians received the news of Obama’s victory with joy and celebrated it as if Obama was the son of Nigeria.

“You will recall that Nigeria is the most populous black nation in the world. So we see it as a personal victory, and we believe that with a black man at the helm of the U.S. government, that would mean more aid, and that would affect Africa positively, and we are praying for him to win the general election,” Idam said.

Panu Panu from the Democratic Republic of Congo said Congolese are happy about Obama’s ascendancy but they were not sure how much difference Obama’s presidency would make in terms of U.S.- Africa relations.

“We believe here that it’s a good thing that an African American has a chance to be the next president of the U.S.A. It’s good for diversity in terms of the American society, but we are not sure that it’s going to change anything regarding American policy toward Africa because to change such a policy really goes beyond a powerful single person,” Panu Panu said.

By James Butty/VOA.

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With as much as twice as many voters participating in Tuesday’s Democratic primaries than in 2004 or 2000, exit polling showed that Clinton maintained her base of women, working class families and white men. She also won 58pc of Pennsylvania’s voters who choose a candidate in the past week. While the Tuesday’s loss was a setback for Obama, he still leads the delegate race by more than 150. However, both candidates will need help from the approximately 790 Superdelegates, largely made up of party insiders, to secure the Democratic nomination.

“Some people counted me out and said to drop out. But the American people don't quit, and they deserve a president who doesn't quit, either,” Clinton said Tuesday night at her victory speech.

It’s hard to put a stake through this vampire’s heart, joked Chive Turkey from Olly’s Onions, based in the UK. Yes, Clinton’s a fighter, admitted Gerard Baker blogging from the Times in London, but he’s tired of the Rocky Balboa cliché thrown around in Philadelphia. He’s got a better one: Clinton’s win means there’s going to be a lot more Groundhog Day’s for both candidates.

With this in mind, most international bloggers concentrated on the future of this race where the biggest question remains: Will all the fighting and win-at-any-cost atmosphere that has developed between the two Democrats pave the way for a John McCain administration come November? Exit polling from the U.S. may suggest so.

But Llegar a Ti, from Uganda, says arguments and attacks are a part of politics. It’s not as bad as it seems claims the Angry African, a South African living with his gas grill in the United States, who currently refers to the contest between Obama and Clinton not as a slugfest, but a slapfest. Mary Fitzgerald at the Prospect Magazine blog in the United Kingdom argues that while the Democratic candidates continue to dominate the front pages, relegating John McCain to the inside pages. She also points out they have also raised a considerable amount of money. Like it or not: no publicity is bad publicity. By designing their complicated and convoluted system of delegates and Superdelegates, the Democrats only have themselves to blame for the length of the contest, writes Keith_London, who resides in London.

Outside of the Pennsylvania primary, Clinton made other news by admitting in an interview she would “totally obliterate” Iran if that country attacked Israel with nuclear weapons. Kamangir, who blogs at Iranian.Com wonders whether the world will take that message as seriously as it did when Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad claimed in 2005 that Iran would wipe Israel off the planet.