JERUSALEM — Tova Weinberg is a lifelong Democrat, but she’s voting for John McCain.

Weinberg, 54, isn’t attracted by the Republican’s position on the economy or the Iraq war. Like many of her compatriots living in Israel, she is voting for the candidate she believes will be a better friend to the Jewish state.

It’s a pattern seen around the world. While the millions of Americans living abroad remain connected to home, they view the election through the distant lens of their new surroundings. As the old adage says, all politics truly are local.

In Israel, the main issue is the country’s security. In Mexico, it’s trade ties, and in Russia, the deteriorating relations with Washington. Almost everywhere, Americans want a leader who can deal with the global financial meltdown and — even more important — fix what is widely seen as a U.S. image tarnished by the Iraq war and the Bush administration’s go-it-alone foreign policy.

“We’ve been on the front lines and we’ve seen the reputation of the U.S. plummet. That has motivated people to vote,” said Margo Miller, a Democratic activist in Britain.

For Weinberg, a retired dentist who splits her time between Pittsburgh and Jerusalem, voting Republican was not easy. She describes herself as a “die-hard liberal Democrat” raised on the values of the civil rights era.

“I was so excited when Obama was up and coming,” said Weinberg, who now runs a Jewish dating service. She first had doubts about Barack Obama over his relationship with the incendiary pastor Jeremiah Wright, and was further upset when Obama said he was willing to speak to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has repeatedly called for Israel’s destruction.

Obama says dialogue might be the best way to keep Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, but Weinberg disagrees.

“To me, as a Jew, that’s like having diplomatic relations with Hitler,” she said. “As a result, he lost my vote.”

In Israel

Such feelings are apparently common in Israel. While Jews in the U.S. have traditionally voted Democratic, the 250,000 Americans living in Israel appear to overwhelmingly support McCain, said Israeli-American political analyst Mitchell Barak. He estimated 70 percent of the roughly 40,000 votes expected to be cast in Israel will be for the Republican.

In contrast to Israel — where both parties have held rallies and registration drives — the election generates little enthusiasm among the Palestinians, who view the U.S. as biased toward Israel. Few of the estimated 40,000 Palestinian-Americans in the West Bank and Gaza Strip are expected to vote.

“The candidates are not interested in Arabs and their causes,” said Walid al-Sous, 52, a former New Yorker who runs a pizzeria in the West Bank city of Ramallah. He said he did not bother to register.

In all, an estimated 6 million Americans living overseas are eligible to vote, according to the federal Election Assistance Commission, though far fewer will likely cast ballots.

Almost 1 million people requested ballots in 2006 midterm elections, but it’s estimated only about 330,000 votes came from abroad. Hundreds of thousands of ballots never reached expatriate voters — apparently because of outdated addresses — and many others were rejected for irregularities such as arriving too late.

Susan Dzieduszycka-Suinat, president of the Overseas Vote Foundation, a nonprofit group that helps expatriates register and vote, said she expects about 2 million people to vote this time, including about 500,000 military personnel.

With many absentee voters coming from battleground states, including Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania, their votes could make a difference. “Overseas votes are a wild card,” Dzieduszycka-Suinat said. “They can be deciding votes.”

But it’s hard to say which candidate will benefit.

Global opinion

A series of global polls in recent months have shown that foreigners overwhelmingly favor Obama over McCain — largely a reflection of Bush’s deep unpopularity overseas. The surveys have found especially heavy support for Obama in many U.S. allies such as Australia, Canada and countries in Western Europe.

It’s not clear whether American expatriates share these views, although the country’s poor image is clearly on many minds.

“The most important issue is the war and its impact on America’s image abroad,” said Doretta Dow-Freidl, a 47-year-old yoga teacher in Berlin. “After 9/11, Europeans gave America massive sympathy, but Bush has really blown it.” She has already mailed her absentee ballot, cast for Obama, to her home district in Lady Lake, Fla.

Miki Bowman, chairwoman of Republicans Abroad in the United Kingdom, said she expects McCain’s strong foreign policy credentials to appeal to many expatriates. The estimated 300,000 Americans in Britain include a large number of military personnel — some 10,000 Americans live on U.S. air bases — and Bowman said they tended to be conservative.

In Mexico, which has the world’s largest U.S. expatriate community, political activists say interest is high.

Larry Rubin, head of Republicans Abroad Mexico, believes about two-thirds of the estimated 1.2 million Americans in Mexico are Republicans. He said voters there are drawn by McCain’s support for the North America Free Trade Agreement, and oppose Obama’s ties with labor unions.

What about Obama?

But Tess Wheelwright, a 26-year-old from Massachusetts living in Mexico City, said she wanted to help make history by voting for the first black president. “I don’t want to have to tell future generations I didn’t vote for Obama,” she said.

In Japan, registration among Americans is up 50 percent from 2004, said Lauren Shannon, head of Democrats Abroad in Tokyo, adding that voters are concerned mainly with “plans to get out of the current economic crisis.”

Andrew Hardisty, chairman of Democrats Abroad in Moscow, said the relatively few Americans there are like a “small town” where partisan sentiment is held in check. Both Republicans and Democrats worry about the poor state of American-Russian relations, he added.

Anne Martin, 43, a native of Shepherdstown, W.Va., who has lived in the Philippines for four years, said America’s faltering reputation overseas decided her vote.

“I just thought Obama is going to bring a nice face to the Americans abroad again,” she said. “He’s got a good way of dealing with the world.”