Yes He Can?

Ahead in the national polls and ahead in six swing states, Barack Hussein Obama, the freshman junior senator from Abraham Lincoln's home state of Illinois is set to become the 44th President of the United State of America and the first African American to be elected to that august office.

• WashPost/ABC News: Obama 53, McCain 44
• Fox News: Obama 50, McCain 43
• CBS News: Obama 51, McCain 42

It gives me goosebumps to type this. I genuinely have butterflies in my stomach. This man has revitalised U.S politics, inspired a new generation of young voters, given hope to those who have long despaired of it, and in a real sense has re-lit the torch that America casts across the waters to a wider world. It is no longer uncool to be pro-American.

He emodies the American dream. To a cyncial 21st Century world that sees the flaws in America perhaps more readily than the good, he is proof that it is possible to come from nothing and achieve your ultimate ambition.

A girl in my class remarked recently that without George W. Bush, there would be no Barack H. Obama. And she's right. He is the anti-Bush. He is the polar opposite of the man with less than a hundred days left to run out the clock in the Oval Office. He is bipartisan in spirit, calm, reflective, predominately liberal but is occassionally also what Bush never was - a compassionate conservative. Not many politicians campaigning for the presidency on a Democratic ticket could have talked so genuinely as he has done about the need to curb teenage pregnancy and abortion rates in America, and also of his deep and guiding religious faith.

On foreign affairs, he remains committed to maintaining the United States as the world's pre-eminent military power but he also understands the need to reach out and work once more with other nations and world powers. American isolationism is a dangerous philosophy, as the world has learnt to its cost after World War I and also for the greater part of the Bush Presidency. Importantly too, Obama knows that his country's greatest adversaries need to be talked to instead of being left out in the cold. I fully expect a thawing in the relationships between American and Iran, at least on a diplomatic level. And the same too with Cuba, in time.

He is a man gifted with an impressive intellect, an inquiring mind and a tongue that Cicero would have been proud of. He is the change that we seek.

As the sun begins to set over America's long west coast; over Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portland and Seattle - dipping into the Pacific and bringing this last day before polling to a close, I hope that voters reflect deeply on the power that they possess with their ballots, that they weigh up the attributes of both presidential tickets, and that they vote to make a change in the way America has been governed for the past eight years.

The Bible says that "He who is slow to anger has great understanding, but he who is quick-tempered exalts folly." George Bush has been a great example of the latter. I believe Obama has it within him to bring the former to the fore once again and bring common-sense governance back to the White House.

Tomorrow and the next day are going to be trying times for those of us who have been rooting for Obama for the last two years.

Yes, he can.