salto mortale

Michael Bloomberg	Republican	Speaks no language other than English well but is reported to be studying Spanish.
Sam Brownback	Republican	Is reported to have been taking Spanish classes since 2004. I have no information on what level of ability this has led to.
Hillary Clinton	Democrat	Apparently monolingual.
Christopher Dodd	Democrat	Speaks Spanish quite passably, though with a definite American accent, as a result of service in the Peace Corps.
John Edwards	Democrat	Appears to speak no language other than English.
Jim Gilmore	Republican	Speaks fluent German as a result of service as a US Army counterintelligence officer in West Germany.
Newt Gingrich	Republican	Speaks no language other than English well but is reported to be studying Spanish.
Rudy Giuliani	Republican	In spite of his identification with the Italian-American community, I can find no indication that he speaks Italian. Apparently a monolingual English speaker. His wife is reported to be learning Spanish.
Mike Gravel	Democrat	Is a fluent native speaker of Canadian French.
Mike Huckabee	Republican	Speaks no language other than English but reads New Testament Greek.
John Kerry	Democrat	Speaks fluent French. His wife Teresa speaks fluent Spanish, French, Italian and Portuguese.
Dennis Kucinich	Democrat	Has been studying Spanish. He is apparently not yet very fluent but is able to speak to some extent extemporaneously and carry on a conversation of sorts.
John McCain	Republican	He is not reported to speak any language other than English. If he learned Vietnamese during his years in Vietnam, he does not seem to have mentioned it.
Barack Obama	Democrat	Speaks Indonesian and limited Spanish.
Ron Paul	Republican	Speaks Spanish.
Colin Powell	Republican	Speaks Yiddish. Exactly how well is not clear. He describes it as a bissel "a little" but may be being modest. Apparently more than just the odd word but less than what is necessary to carry on a real conversation.
Bill Richardson	Democrat	A native speaker of Spanish, he is also reported to speak French well.
Mitt Romney	Republican	Is said to speak fluent French resulting from serving a 30 month mission in France. There are reports that he also speaks Swahili, though I cannot determine where he might have learned it and have not confirmed this.

[language log]