European Interest in US election

I am incredibly interested in the upcoming presidential election and I feel that many other Americans are as well. What has surprised me though is the interest that the European countries have shown in the race. I was reading a news article from the BBC the other day and it was throwing out words like swing states and talking about how Ohio is going to be very important. This may seem very mundane and common knowledge to us, but I would categorize it as rather specialized US political jargon. I know very little about the way the European states conduct their elections but it seems that they have a fairly solid understanding of how we conduct ours. I'm curious about what people think is the reason for the disparity between the US's understanding of other countries political systems and their understanding of ours. Is it simply an education issue? Are they so much better versed in world policies? Or is it because the United States is the primary power of the world? Lastly, does it stem from the fact that the Europeans are so fed up with Bush that they want to see if we fail again in electing a reasonable candidate?