America and the world wakes up this morning to learn that the American dream has at last become a reality. In his six minute acceptance speech, that was both modest and sober yet demontrated beyond all doubt that hi eloquence comes from within, not from the speech writers.Barack Hussein Obama,

“If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible; who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time; who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer,” he said.

“It’s been a long time coming, but tonight, because of what we did on this day, in this election, at this defining moment, change has come to America.”

The result was never in doubt as the night unfolded but by around 4 AM GMT it becaame clear that the majority was almost as huge of that won by Bill Clinton in his second term, with 338 electoral college votes cast for Obama against just 155 votes for John McCain. The eight-year reign of George W Bush has ended. Although Bush remains in charge of the White House until 20 January 2009, from this day on he wil consult wiith Obama when any major problems arise.

The result brought tears to the eyes of the Rev Jesse Jackson, the veteran black politician, who himself bid to win the Presidency. Like Obama, Jackson was inspired by the dream of Martin Luther king who lit the fires of the civil rights movement with his ‘I have a dream’ speech in 1963. The news that there will be an Afro-American in the White House is a tonic for black people everywhere. The turn-out at the polls was an all-time record for an American election. Obama’s eloquence, combined with the brilliance of his organisation and the $5 billion he was able to raise brought out the black vote. Many black votes voted for the first time in their lifetime.

But in his acceptance speech Obama re-iterated that although he is black, Democrat, liberal and left-wing, that he wants to form something like a government of national unity.

‘We are, and always will be, the United States of America”

In the last few weeks Obama has been helped by the financial crisis. We shall never know whether Obama would have won, in the melt-down had not occurred, if George W Bush, had not had to back-track on his free market beliefs and pump billions of Goverment money into the economy and near-nationalise leading banks. But the crisis gave Obama his chance to kill the negative campaigning that attempted to brand him a man of insufficient experience to be entrusted with the world’s top job. The team of Hilary Clinton, in the Democratic primaries, and some of the Republicans in John McCain’s team, played on fears that Obama was not to be trusted with nuclear button.

During the campaign there were also repeated attempts to play on the racial prejudice, which undoubedly exist in the minds and hearts of some American. Early in the campaign there was a concerted attempt to cast Obama as a black revolutinary, by using the words of his long-time pastor, Jerimiah Wright. The Murdoch-owned Fox Television repeatedly used his full name, Barack Hussein Obama, to imply that he sympathesied with Musliim terrorists.

Rupert Murdoch himself appeared on US television last night to voice his continued fears about Obama’s leftyness. But his papers in London were already being printed with hugely positive headlines. The Sun proclaimed:

One giant leap for mankind

The headline writers of The Times called it a ‘New World’. Their first leader could not have been more positive. Here is the opening:

Barack Obama fulfills the dream

Forty years after the murder of Martin Luther King the United States has elected an African American president. It is a moment to savour

The election of Barack Obama, the son of a Kenyan goatherd, as the 44th President of the United States of America is a moment to savour, proof that the promise of a better day, expressed in prose that rises like poetry, can still carry an electorate. The margin of victory was emphatic and, whatever else follows, today the world changed. The cheers of the exultant crowd in Grant Park, Chicago will find their echo across the free world.

This is not to belittle the Republican candidate John McCain. We knew from his life that he is a brave man. We know from his campaign that he is a good man. But, from today, a black child born in America will look on his nation with greater pride because he will feel that the highest office in the land is open to him. The American nation will replenish the confidence that it has lately lost. In the eyes of the world, the slate will be clean and the pretext, always spurious, for anti-Americanism has been removed. On his very first day, and without doing a thing, Barack Obama has brought America together and brought America closer to the world.

And here is the conclusion:

But the achievements, the arguments, the what-ifs, the fear of disappointment: these are not for now. The essential point about President Barack Obama is the privilege of being able to write this sentence. A black man has been elected to the highest office of the most powerful country of the world and, to borrow one of his own phrases, a righteous wind is at his back.

Whether Obama will actually be able to do enough to save the world from a major recession. But this far the stock markets are giving him the thumbs up. Wall Street rose 4 per cent on election day as the predictions were showing a clear Obama victory. Asian markets rose by about 5 per cent this morning after his victory was confirmed.