In other words, to paraphrase Field of Dreams, if you inspire them, they will come to you. And, in Obama's case, they have come out in greater numbers than they have for decades.


I first saw him in action at the Democratic Convention in 2004. It was a brilliant speech and a brilliant performance; well written and passionately delivered. It didn't matter that whole chunks of it may have been worked on and honed down by professional writers; all that mattered was that the speech reflected the real Obama and mirrored the desire that the millions of listeners still cherished, namely, that the American Dream, the right of anyone to become anything, was still alive.
Above and beyond all else, though, Obama has that one quality which separates the winners from the losers in electoral politics – charisma.

It oozes from every pore. He turns heads, he lights up a room; he makes you listen. Since the 1960s a very few British and American leaders have had it; Kennedy, Thatcher, Clinton, Reagan and Blair being among them. It doesn't guarantee a glitteringly successful career, let alone ensure a treasured legacy, but it usually allows you to survive more scrapes and cock-ups than your rivals.


Of course, none of this means that Obama is a genuinely gifted politician armed with a legislative agenda capable of sorting out America's huge array of domestic and international problems. What we have got so far has consisted almost entirely of the "vision thing" which, admittedly, sounds good, but is also undeniably vague. I suspect he is attracting voters precisely because he hasn't fully committed himself to anything substantial.


To that extent he has learned from Tony Blair, who won his first election on the back of a campaign song that "things can only get better." American voters, worried by ongoing war, terrorist threats, a falling dollar and the collapse of the property market, may also believe that, irrespective of the candyfloss nature of Obama's message, a vote for him is still a signal that things can't get any worse.



Obama has also been helped by the fact that his main rival for the Democratic nomination is Hillary Clinton. I met her very briefly a few years ago and noted in my diary that she was "the political equivalent of a Stepford Wife; cold, robotic and briefed only for the purpose of making people believe that she actually cared about their problems". She is also a very dull speaker, with a monotonous voice, unchanging tone and a dead-eyed interaction with her audience.



Her biggest miscalculation, however, has been to base her campaign on becoming the first female President. Yes, America may be ready for a woman in the White House, but is it ready for a woman who seems to have stood by her philandering, dishonest husband in order to further her own personal standing and political ambition? This, after all, is a nation with country and western music as part of its daily pulse and with chart-topping songs in which women are no longer prepared to "take that, from any man who says he loves me". All of which may explain why a majority of women under 50 are voting for Obama rather than for her.
The contest isn't done and dusted yet. American elections are littered with the bodies of candidates who did well in the early stages, only to be trampled down in the much bigger State primaries. But the momentum, the "Big Mo" as pundits like to call it, is with Obama. The nomination is now his to lose.



The Republican battle is a much more difficult one to call. A very unpopular President Bush is of no use to any of their candidates and they have no young pretender to match, let alone take on Obama. They have no women, either. What they do have is the same old, same old. A couple of evangelicals trying to tap into the so-called Moral Majority vote; an old actor trying to tap into the Reagan grassroots; and Rudy Giullani, the voice and spirit of the American people as the Twin Towers collapsed and Bush dithered.


They also have John McCain who, in my opinion, towers above every other Democrat or Republican seeking the nomination. He is everything that is good and great about America, a walking, talking embodiment of the spirit and honour that forged and was once the backbone of the United States. He doesn't need the "vision thing" because he has hands-on experience of real, unprivileged life. His problem, of course, is that he doesn't really belong in an era where elections are won and lost on soundbites, negative advertising and mountains of cash. Barring some sort of miracle, I don't believe he can win the Republican nomination.
We will probably know the Democrats' nominee by early March, but it looks like it could be late summer or early autumn before the Republicans crown their choice. My own suspicion is that we are then heading into the dirtiest and most expensive election campaign in American history. And if Obama is the Democrats' candidate I also think that the race card is going to be played and played ruthlessly.


As I said earlier, America may be ready for a woman in the White House, albeit not Hillary Clinton. But I'm not sure that it's ready for a coloured person. To understand my point, try to imagine a unionist power struggle at the 2011 Assembly election which resulted in Sinn Fein emerging as the largest party and then Gerry Adams taking up the office of First Minister. It would be a headline story around the world, but it would also have massive, unpleasant and destabilising repercussions within the pro-Union community.
And that's precisely the sort of battle that will be fought if it's Barack Obama versus any of the Republican candidates. He may well be young, gifted and charismatic; but in the eyes of many Americans, too many perhaps, he is also black. The November election, if it does involve Obama, will be one of the most important since the Civil War period of the 1860s; and the result will tell us a very great deal about America today.



What will be interesting to watch, in the meantime, is whether the Democratic Party, desperate to recapture the White House, plays the race card now to stop Obama before it is too late.