Carlo Coppetti '11 stared intently at the computer screen as Sens. John McCain and Barack Obama sounded off at Wednesday night's final presidential debate and fought for the support of "Joe the Plumber."
Coppetti, who canvasses for Obama, is as engaged in the election as any other student. But this November, Coppetti will not be voting - not for McCain, Obama or any candidate.
He's not a felon, a minor or even apathetic - he's international.
And like many international students, Coppetti - who is from Switzerland - has been keeping a close eye on an election in which he has no say.
The international community is "watching (the election) so closely, and now that the economy is going really, really badly, whatever happens here affects the world," Xelef Botan '11 said. Botan, who is from Turkey, said his home country is especially concerned about what happens in Iraq because the countries are neighbors.
But even though international students will be spectators on Nov. 4, many are just as vocal as Americans.
Nikhita Raman '11, who is from Indonesia but went to school in India, said she's most concerned about the candidates' foreign policy positions and how they will affect the global community.
"I do want America to have a president who has a good tax policy or a good idea for a health care system, but it's not something that I would spend too much time trying to understand," she said.
Raman added that she is not used to watching presidential candidates debate live on television.
"We have speeches, but we never have these debates that are open for the entire country to watch," Raman said.
She also said that in India there is less of a discussion about the policies of a candidate. "People just generally go to pick the person that's going to favor them," she said. Here, she said, "we have the privilege of picking the person we want to vote for based on their general policies."
Coppetti said his international friends on campus are watching the debates and are concerned about the election.
"It's a little surprising that people actually make the effort to get into American politics, to learn about how things work and to take the time to read about and think about the current election, even though they're less affected then American citizens," he said.
Some students interviewed by The Herald said this election is especially relevant to the international community because of President Bush's poor reputation abroad.
"We're at a crucial point in time," Coppetti said. "There's a big chance of the U.S. becoming even more of a segregated society, of more wars starting, of the U.S. losing power on a global scale."
Nathanael Geman '09, who has dual French and American citizenship, said many Europeans have not been pleased with decisions made by the American government in the last eight years.
"I think even Europeans would (want to) see someone like Barack Obama get elected," he said, "not only in terms of American domestic policy, but for internationals, for foreign policy and for the image that the U.S. has abroad."
Coppetti said many people in Europe do not understand the views of the religious right, especially on issues like abortion and evolution. "In Europe, people aren't as religious," he said. "My friends and my family, when they talk about American politics, they are just really alienated by these concepts."
The constant barrage of election information has forced many students to learn about the American political system, something that might have been less of a priority before the excitement of this race.
To foreign students, the American political system can come off as strangely polarized. When Geman first learned about the American two-party system, he said he struggled with the lack of compromise between the Democratic and Republican values.
"I just found it weird at the beginning that either one or the other side had to be all encompassing," he said.
Coppetti said he has learned a lot from canvassing and phone banking for Obama. "I get to see a side of the United States I haven't seen before," he said.
But being on campus may not be the best place to learn about varied political views. Most students here tend to lean Democratic, which does not reflect the political landscape of the country as a whole.
"I feel always that I'm at Brown and I'm not in the United States," Raman said. "I think it would maybe be nice to go get another perspective."
