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As U.S. voters prepare to head to the polls, Greeks remain in the dark over whether European bailout plans will allow them to remain in the euro. AFP/Getty Images
Marathon negotiations with European leaders -- and civil unrest -- have been a recent feature of Athens. Yanis Varoufakis says Greeks are no longer looking to Washington for rays of hope. AFP/Getty Images
Varoufakis says his first memory of a U.S. election was hearing that Democratic frontrunner Robert F. Kennedy had been assassinated on the campaign trail in 1968. Popperfoto/Getty Images
Kennedy was killed in 1968, a year into what Varoufakis calls the "dark ages" of the military dictatorship of Georgios Papadopoulos (C) that lasted from 1967 to 1973. Getty Images/FILE
But now, as roughly a quarter of Greeks remain out of work, Athenians see the U.S. as just as impotent in the face of the global recession. AFP/Getty Images
Varoufakis says Greeks today aren't looking toward American presidents for cues, but from European leaders like French President Francois Hollande and German Chancellor Angela Merkel. AFP/Getty Images
Varoufakis says America's ability to influence the world was shown when "inane" European finance ministers ignored U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner's advice in 2011 on how to address the euro crisis. AFP/Getty Images
Many now fear that European Central Bank officials and other leaders are merely waiting for the U.S. to vote before cutting Greece loose from the euro. AFP/Getty Images
Varoufakis says almost everyone he speaks to is interested in the election -- and that most of the Greeks he knows want four more years of Barack Obama.
No one's afraid of a Mitt Romney presidency, however, says Varoufakis -- and in fact Greeks are coming to see America as a kindred spirit. Getty Images
Most think the U.S. understands what Greeks -- or the Irish and Portuguese -- are going through in the hands of a German-dominated austerian Europe. AFP/Getty Images
