Don't forget though the Canadian PM is telling them the very same thing, in about the same tone, and is about as well-liked as Romney. Relations with Russia have been fairly poor since 2006 and Harper's obsession with Canada's claim over the arctic, and it got no better recently over our position about Syria. Putin's clearly find Canada annoying, though the way he chose to manifest it so far is pretty laughable (like expressing "great worries" over a provincial law to curtail student protests... his own similar laws are 10 times harsher).




They were never sympathetic or impressed with Romney for sure, but except for France where Obama's star is for some reason still shining, the media didn't seem to me downright hostile to Romney.

Canadian media is mostly neutral in their reporting (the canadian right is not very fond of Romney as candidate, though they still support his election), and the editorialists are fairly divided depending on the region of Canada they write for. The enthusiasm for Obama, which was more about his personality and a bit less empathy with the hopes of the American left, is largely gone in Canada, even from the provinces that vote center or center left. Obama lost even those when he lifted exclusions for Canadians from the Buy American Act. The USA is our greatest economic partner, we're more pragmatic than others when it comes to US politics, keener to look where our interests are rather than being sympathetic to the party we find closer to Canadian views (to each his own, after all). Even the liberals sure prefer the foreign policies of the Democrats, but there are fears among them for the Canadian economy whenever they're in power; eg: we get a FTA with Reagon, Clinton throws us in courts for years, ruining a whole sector of our economy, and we had to wait for Bush to finally see the end of that. There was a time when Canadians much preferred the Republicans and were usually hostile to the Democrats. It's the turn toward the moral/religious right and much later the Bushes that made Canadians more reserved about the Republicans (certainly not the Reformists and Harper, who is pretty much a Canadian GWB). Clinton's personality was popular here, not his economic policies (and if Obama ended up being more favoured, it owed much to the fact he was seen as a lesser of two evils compared to Hillary who had made extremely alarming comments for the Canadian economy). Other than that, the sole Democrat president that was highly revered is JFK (especially in Catholic Québec, when catholicism still counted for much)

Liberal media are an endangered species in Canada (and according to many incl. The Economist, so is our democracy). Quebec is as interested in French Europe as it is in US politics, the rest of the country is mostly turned toward the US. Regions of the country are far closer to Fox News nowadays than you seem to think (just take a look at Sun media newspapers or news channel). The three oil producing provinces are avidly wishing for the election of the Republicans, the federal government only displays the appearance of neutrality expected of a foreign power but their bias toward the Republicans is not a secret to anyone (there are even Republicans tied to Harper's Calgary think tank from which his ideas to "re engineer" Canada come from) and people close to Harper but not tied to the government openly said he's wishing for the return of the Republicans to finish stabilizing Canadian economy. Harper even played a timely little charade making moves to prioritize a pipeline to sell our oil to China because he blames Obama and his clientelism with the ecologists for dragging his feet too much about the pipeline from Alberta to Texas, and of course Romney picked up that ball Harper threw him, as he was meant to. It's also no coincidence Harper is now making noises about opening negotiations for a free-trade agreeement with China, which quite a few believe is another ball thrown to Romney for him to spin, as was the Canadian decision last week to slam the diplomatic door on Iran. Yesterday, Harper condemned the attacks on your embassies, but unlike others didn't denounce the movie He also closed our embassy in Egypt. As for Europe, Harper repeatedly blasts the EU, to the point of being un diplomatic and very patronizing about it. Harper's positions on foreign policies are largely aligned with the Republicans', so are his energetic vision and his environmental vision. And we all know Harper, who never forgave the Canadian left's opposition to the war in Irak, is determined to drag Canada into any conflict with Iran the US or Israel might start, without UN mandate if necessary which would be a precedent (Harper completely realigned our diplomacy, we're the pup howling with the big wolves now), so Romney is worrying on that front to many, but not all (western Canada seems to love this new bullying and militarist Canada). There's no love lost between the present Canadian government and the Democrats, and a fair number of Canadians are wishing them gone in November, again especially in Western Canada.

Personally I'd gladly welcome back the Republicans for the economy's sake, though in foreign affairs I find Romney more and more worrying, not the least because of Harper with whom we're stuck at least until 2015.