More incredible than electing the firt woman president of America, is electing the first American black president in November.

His name could be Barack Obama the African-American Democrat senator from Chicago, Illinois who trounced New York senator Hillary Clinton (former First Lady) for the party nomination - the first time in decades that an underdog beat an apparent invincible front-runner (Clinton).

That the election of a colored man in America would appear fairy-tale (ish) today is both an indictment and an achievement of America as a land of the free.

For the race of the African-American black for recognition is a book in itself - reeking with prejudice and racial discrimination for hundreds of years. It's almost old history to note that another Democrat President Abraham Lincoln ended slavery in the nation; several years later, a charismatic Democratic president named John Fitzgerald Kennedy fought for equal rights of the Negroes in America.

In the land of the brave, the land of the free - it became a sad footnote in her history that these two civil-libertarian presidents (Lincoln and Kennedy) were both assassinated, unable to finish their terms.

It seemed not too long ago, too, that blacks and whites would have separate classrooms and buses in America. And to meditate the possibility that one of their own - a black senator - could run the most powerful on earth by November this year - is a glorious testament that indeed - anything good (and bad) can happen in America.

But the Muslim-sounding named Barack Obama was perhaps meant to be the symbol of the erasure of the class distinctions marked by differences in race and color. For after all, Barack Jr. is a biological product of a Kenyan economist-father (studied in University of Hawaii) - Barack Obama Sr. and a white mother Stanley Ann Dunham - the latter described by the senator as the "one who most influenced his life."

A brilliant political statement that erased the myth that Barack Obama Jr. is "pure black."

Indeed, when Barack Sr. and Ann Dunham married in 1960 in Hawaii - it was big news since 50% of the states in American then banned inter-racial marriages as illegal. Whoa, indeed.

Candidates Hillary and Barack engaged in a high-profile 18-month grueling Democratic fight - both bloodied but stronger in the end - to face the aging Republican nominee John McCain.

Whether out of statesmanship or practical political drama, Clinton endorsed Obama's candidacy over the weekend to ensure that the Democratic Party parades back to Washington by November.

That endorsement is important for Obama's certainty of victory (Hillary won 18 million popular votes in the primary) as it is vital for Clinton to perhaps snare the vice-presidential nomination and create an unbeatable Obama-Clinton tandem. That could still pave the wave for the fulfillment of an old prophecy that America will have a woman president past 2000. But that's another story.

While Clinton became personal in his campaign tirades against the Harvard-educated 46 year old lawyer-senator, Barack took the moral high ground. The man has absolute charisma - winning quietly like an efficient locomotive through the backdoor.

Barack Obama of Ivy-league coolness, soft spoken and quite a looker - is followed by folks like he is a rock star. While Hillary could be feisty and combative - Barack is a classic case study in public oratory - lilting his voice, straining his neck, using his body language to punctuate his rather extravagant fluency of the English language to win points. He was once described by a political analyst over BBC (British Broadcasting Company) as a young Martin Luther King. He who spoke of "I Have a Dream."

Is the ascension of black Barack Obama as the next president of America - a moral fulfillment of the dream of Luther King (also assassinated) for the equality of blacks and whites in the heretofore extremely racist America?

Will Barack use his tremendous talent for organization that worked like a well-lubricated corporate machine in his campaign to run an efficient government? Will Obama inspire the same kind of idealists that worked for his election - the passionate rather than the opportunist-mercenaries since his volunteers took faith in his game plan despite his being an underdog?

Will his feared inexperience in the Executive branch ruin his stint in Washington? Despite the fact that 80% of Americans think the White House of Bush is today straying the nation to the wrong path, the problems confronting America today - and the new president - will be titanic in proportion.

He has to undo the "wrong war," balance the budget, save the mortgage market, stem off the recession and kill the dragons spewed by high fuel energy costs and the food crisis. That basket of problems would look formidable even with Hillary (and his husband advising) inside the White House.

One of the criticism against Obama seems to be the perception that he is "not that strong" to fight the many headaches of presidential governance. But the strategic one-upmanship and deliberate tactical moves in his no-holds-barred wrestling with Clinton, proved that he may not be advertising his strength publicly to the point of his own perdition.

Democrat presidents compared to their Republican counterparts, are prone to frown more and act negatively against governments of countries that violate human rights and with high levels of corruption.

For instance, it took the final few days of 1986 when the EDSA revolt became inevitable that Republican American president and Marcos ally (Ronald Reagan) finally relented and asked his Asian soul mate Ferdinand Marcos to "cut and cut cleanly." O

utgoing president George Bush Jr, on the other hand has been GMA's buddy in the anti-terrorist global campaign even as he quits the White House next year.

We expect an elected Barack Obama to be more frank about the issue of human rights in the country and the value of clean, upright governance. We expect him not to keep quiet in the face of mounting evidence of the excesses of the GMA Government. How will this affect American military and economic aid to the Philippines in the Obama years? We will know sooner than we can imagine.

In the meantime, we can sing along, perhaps pre-maturely, with singer- superstars Paul McCartney (Beatles) and blind and black songwriter-singer Grammy awardee Stevie Wonder in their immortal song: "Ebony and Ivory" (translate "black and white"):
"Ebony and Ivory - we're together in perfect harmony side by side on the piano, keyboard - why don't we?"