Many of the expats and Westernized asians that I am friends with keep up with North American politics, primarily the US presidential race.
Back in Texas there were very few instances that the topic of politics was broached at a bar (at least the cool ones I visited). However, in both Seoul and Kaohsiung many of the headline issues are openly discussed by non-citizens. For instance, the owner of the local Belgium pub that I frequently visit is quite the news junkie. As are most of his patrons. You should hear them talk about the Taiwanese independence movement…
Anyways, most of the expats I’ve met along the way have all pretty much have a hard on for Che Guevara and other “lovable” socialists. And in the current election if they are not pulling for Nader or Gore they’re quite the Obama fans.
I mention this because about the only two or three economic issues that we all agree on are: against maintaining an empire, anti-(corporate) welfare, and anti-central banks. [note: my own thoughts are over at the Mises blog.]
However out of all 20 or so presidential candidates from this past year, there were only two iconoclastic congressman from both sides of the political isle that also represented the views from above: Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich. And the weirdest thing is that I’ve met a couple expats that seemed up-to-speed about these two guys, lauding their positions over pitchers of beer.
And as luck would have it, both recently won in the primaries and will remain curmudgeons in the House. Thus, giving foreign observers like my Belgium friend another reason to enjoy watching CSPAN.