Ready? Set, Go!

Choices, choices, don't they bedevil us? A black man or a white woman, that was the choice Americans were given to represent the Democratic run for the White House. That was some public relations battle, most certainly. Having the effect of bringing out the best and the worst in personalities and ambition-led initiatives. Some of which came back to sting, some of which led to transitory successes. Revealing much, yet too little about each of the candidates.

Rejection is always painful. All the more so when so much has been invested in the attempt to succeed. Time, funding, vulnerabilities, anxiety, self-respect. Each had their champions, each their detractors. And within those polarities there was an emerging consensus as the contest became a moveable feast; one that, in the final analysis, left an insipid bitterness, neatly overlaid with a necessity to unite, for public consumption.

In the end the majority of voting Democrats let themselves be carried away on the tide of their rising expectations. Effectively, a matter of faith over reason. The selection was finalized to celebrate a man whose political curriculum vitae is slim, but whose overweening confidence in himself led him to embark on a trip abroad during the campaign, to demonstrate his ease and support within the international community.

To Europe, to demonstrate his truly singular presence on the political world scene. Illustrating supreme self-assurance, an entitlement to the enthusiastic welcomes his presence elicited from excitable Europeans, swooning at the prospect of a different, infinitely more palatable America, under his guiding hand. As though Europe had the power of bestowing the presidency upon this self-availing man.

Senator Obama does represent a young man with admittedly unusual, although not totally unique life experiences, who thought it fit to publish two memoirs before ageing gracefully past middle-age. He, in any event, considers himself to be remarkably unique - as do we all, in a sense, though lacking his purposeful assurance. The difference being that we live with a vague hope about our individuality, and he demonstrates the power of positive acceptance.

It is this unique self-regard and self-assurance that the great preponderance of the uncertain, those anxious to be led, are responding to. Presenting as a man of sterling quality, as yet a facade yet to be tested, should the presidency become his personal testing ground. And should the presidency become his personal testing ground?

There are some niggling, nagging doubts among those intrigued, but not quite engaged with his promise. There lingers in the background some segmented portions of his unfortunate decisions to engage with questionable personalities, some of whose influences could be imagined to be less than useful,let alone acceptable, to a man with Senator Obama's aspirations.

A devout Christian, he respected and honoured and allied himself with a man of the Church who seemed to eschew the concept of forgiveness and the brotherhood of man. A spiritual leader whose venom against white America - not, necessarily without cause but hardly appropriate at this time and in this age - caused him to publicly spew hateful invective against the country, its politics and its people.

And another, and perhaps others, whose political-ideological orientation more than bordered on the subversive and the violent disavowal of the American spirit. These alliances cast great doubt on the suitability of Senator Obama as a candidate to achieve the highest office of the land, but they've been assiduously shunted aside as the glamour of his celebrity enraptured onlookers who - in a celebrity-obsessed country - responded to his skillful rhetoric.

But who, after all knows, the true promise of the man? He might very well be completely capable of fulfilling every one of the promises that his adoring supporters see in his essence, hear in his voice. The heartfelt endorsement that Senator Obama's supporters were enraptured by through the voice of Michelle Obama certainly attests to that potential.