Indeed, the 47-year-old senator from Illinois won the longest, not to say fightingest, election in American history, after he toppled two formidable rivals, namely, Senator Hillary Clinton during the Democratic Party’s nomination campaign, and Senator John McCain, the 71-year-old nominee of the Republican Party, during the presidential race to the White House.

Soon after his stunning victory last Tuesday, Obama was swamped by an avalanche of accolades from Americans and other peoples all over the world for succeeding in his improbable quest to become the first African-American president.

"Barack Obama broke the racial barrier for all Americans," one of them enthusiastically proclaimed. "An extraordinary victory," said another. Numerous others called it "a stunning victory," "genuinely historic," "a transitional movement in American political history" and so on.

The best tribute came from a professor of law at the Northwestern University: "The historic election of Barack Obama means that the American dream is alive and well and thriving and that anyone, of any race or ethnic background, can rise in American life and politics – the presidency itself!"

And so, Barack Obama, son of a Kenyan and a white American, is now the 44th US president, not just of those who elected him, who backed him with enormous campaign funds, but of all American citizens, be they Democrats, Republicans alike, and the so-called independent, undecided, and last-minute voters in all 50 states of the American union.

Naturally, there followed much serious discussions and analyses by the usual suspects, you know, political observers and analysts, and voluble commentators in the media establishment in the US and elsewhere in world capitals, Paris, London, Moscow, and Manila. They tried to delve into how Obama won and why McCain lost his bid to become the oldest ever president against his younger rival.

Many of them seem to agree that the economic collapse, which occurred in the middle of the hotly-contested presidential race, was the impetus that transformed a solid Democratic year to a landslide by Obama.

But even before that the victory of Obama and the Democrats was assured in large part by an unpopular war in Iraq, a Republican culture of incompetence, and a philosophic and ideological shallowness, according to one perceptive political observer. Not only this, the Republican camp bungled the campaign, and, despite his effort to keep his distance from George W. Bush, McCain faced a difficult task to win as his party’s candidate in the wake of failed administration of Bush.

The central question, now that he has emerged the victor, is: Will President-elect Obama’s conciliatory and open-minded rhetoric that he displayed in his acceptance speech carry the day in a Democratically-dominated government, or will the "killer instinct" of some long-frustrated Democrats take over, and will he draw out the support of the minority Republican senators?

Anyway, when Obama ascends the presidency on January 20, 2009, he will find out that he won’t have time to catch his breath. He will immediately begin the arduous work of turning his campaign promises into a viable agenda.

Oh, of course, Obama is fully aware that he has inherited neither peace nor prosperity for the country, but rather the toughest environment for a new president. He takes over the most powerful office in the world land with his nation in the grip of the worst economic crisis in decades and enmeshed in two wars.