Is Obama a socialist? What do the European socialists think?

This article from Die Zeit, a German newspaper with Social Democratic leanings (I'm told that former Chancellor Helmut Schmidt is one of its editors) was sent to me in German by a friend. Please forgive the awkwardness of the translation below. My German is limited, to say the least, and I've had to make use of the best resources available (chiefly Babel Fish and my own very limited knowledge of German syntax). But I've run this chewing-gum-and-bailing-wire translation past my friend, and he says it's pretty accurate.

In any case, at a time when the American media are clucking disapprovingly at John McCain's suggestion that Barack Obama is ideologically a socialist, it seems relevant to ask what European socialists think.

Here's the article, as best I can render it (and again, I'm the first to admit that I don't render it very well):

Obama and Us

The Democrat represents the European model of the welfare state - and is fighting the election for it against the Right. His election campaign is therefore also our election campaign

An election victory by Barack Obama on November 4 would have political repercussions even at a distance. It would amount to a "swing to the left" in the USA that cannot be without consequences, say Obama aides in Washington. From the viewpoint of the European Social Democrats it would be, as Obama's campaign slogan has it, "the change that we need-" exactly the change which can help us. This could indeed be the case.

The fact that the change would be noticeable in Europe is understandable because it reflects something which is happening automatically at a time in which the industrial nations are searching for a common strategy for the management of the global financial crisis. A US government under guidance of Obama, set on co-operation, would change the international situation fundamentally.

But beyond that, the Democratic candidate is so much a product of the American culture that he knows little of our position. Yet his political vision is "more European than all the other prominent figures of the present American political scene, including Bill Clinton." His political profile is in some respects even more European than some politicians on the old continent, who modelled themselves after Anglo-Saxon patterns.

The fact that Obama fits the European model is confirmed above all by that model's opponent, the American Right. It leads an aggressive election campaign against him as as a candidate of "linkage." It can, however, be disputed whether Obama can be understood at all within that framework.

Ambiguous? Can there be anything about Barack Obama that is not ambiguous? Yet it seems clear that the commonality between European social democracy and Obama's approach to economics and government has not gone unnoticed on the other side of the Atlantic.

At the same time, a certain amount of caution is in order. Obama will likely take office with a congress hell-bent on taking the nation on a gigantic lurch to the Left. As ideologically sympathetic as Obama might be to such a course, he is not a European. Moreover, whatever his shortcomings, a genuine desire to see both sides and bring about a reconciliation between opposites seems to be a fundamental part of his character. Obama, ironically, may well end up serving as a moderating influence on a radical Democratic congress that otherwise would be totally out of control.

But is Obama a socialist? For all the ambiguity, it would seem that John McCain isn't the only one who has noticed the resemblance between Obama's fundamental philosophy and that of the social democrats. The social democrats have noticed it, too.