700 people stripped naked in French vineyards this week. Why? To try to influence world leaders to do more regarding climate change.

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Speaking at the Paris Motor Show, President Nicolas Sarkozy said the investment is destined “exclusively for the research and development of non-polluting vehicles.” His comments follow earlier announcements from French carmakers Renault SA and PSA Peugeot Citroen of separate agreements with energy company Electricite de France (EdF) to develop and market green vehicles.

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From the 200,000 Germans that showed up to see Senator Obama speak in Berlin, to the press conference he had with a gushing French President Nicolas Sarkozy, it is not hard to understand why one European newspaper referred to him as, “Arguably the world’s most popular politician.”

But during a press conference with Sarkozy, one French journalist asked the politically astute question: “Is it a good thing to be loved by the French in the United States?”

Obama replied by saying both countries have suffered from caricatures — America as unilateral and militaristic, and France as anti-American and soft on security, but that in actuality, “The average American has enormous fondness for the French people,” Obama said. “And I think people in France and people throughout Europe should not underestimate how much interest there is in America in seeing the transatlantic relationship improving.”

Obama’s trip to the Middle East and Europe was designed, in part, to give those who doubted his presidential capacity, particularly in matters of foreign affairs, a glimpse of the junior Senator from Illinois being, well, “presidential.”

And it seems to have worked.

A July 26th Gallup Poll suggests that Obama has actually widened his lead over Republican John McCain while in Europe. Obama’s current seven-point lead over McCain ties the widest since the start of Gallup Poll Daily tracking of the general election in early March. The one other time there was a seven point difference was immediately after Hillary Clinton suspended her campaign for the Democratic nomination in early June.

Let me make this clear, polling is not an exact science, and swings of a couple of points here or there really don’t mean that much. And certainly some portion of the widening gap is attributable to the extra media coverage the trip sparked.

But as the Barack Obama Summer World Tour winds up today in London, it is plain to see the presumptive Democratic nomminee’s rock-star appeal is not bound by the shores of the United States. And Americans have reacted to candidate Obama’s overseas trip quite favorably.

Is it possible that the blinders that kept so many Americans from seeing how the rest of the world actually perceives us are now revealing that they have some holes?

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• “New McCain TV Ad Blames Obama for High Gas Prices”

Image Credits: 1. Obama for President; 2. Gallup.