"There is no doubt about it. The legacy George W. Bush will leave behind is devastating. The United States, the greatest superpower of all time, has lost influence and authority on every continent, even on its own. It's a reality the next president will have to live with, and it will be his job to regain political and moral authority. Number 44 will have to pay off debt, create a social safety net and then stabilize it. The new president will have to bring home the troops and yet continue to protect the country, acknowledge climate change and yet secure the country's energy supply, strengthen friendships and, most of all, reinvigorate America's confidence in its ability to solve its own problems. He will have to restore Americans' faith in their country as a special place.

This is the standard by which Number 44 will be measured -- and voted into the White House. And now, on this Tuesday in St. Paul, it is Barack Obama, the winner of the Democratic semifinal, who suddenly seems infinitely greater than his opponent of the recent past. At this moment, his moment, he also seems greater than his opponent of the near future.

There are several reasons to explain Obama's victory, as well as a number of truths behind Clinton's defeat. Never before has America experienced a grassroots campaign quite like Obama's. Every e-mail address was stored, not a single call was lost and at Obama headquarters in Chicago, people -- not machines -- paid attention to the cares and concerns of citizens. Even at 3 a.m. Instead of depending on major donors, Obama pinned his hopes on the millions of his often-young supporters, who would donate $25 today -- online -- and perhaps another $30 eight weeks later. "This is your campaign," he kept repeating, and the fact that he managed to turn it into a movement is mostly his own achievement.

An Honest and Sincere Candidate

It didn't hurt that Obama came across as honest and sincere. He was upfront with voters when he explained his misgivings about the radical pastor of his church, Jeremiah Wright. At the same time, he told them why he found it so difficult to drop a friend after so many years. The country could have called Obama weak, but instead it believed him.

Another plus for Obama was that no one was as savvy about US election laws as his campaign manager, David Axelrod. In Iowa, Axelrod already knew how many delegates were to be had in which district by the time Hillary's troops had showed up to rent office space.

Finally, Team Obama stuck together. There were no firings, no indiscretions, and not even his campaign slogan, "Change We Can Believe In," had to be fine-tuned. It was the perfect campaign.

The reason it was so perfect was that Obama refused to abandon his conviction that he is precisely what America needs: a fresh face that promises change, absolution for the sins and recovery from the consequences of the Bush era. Obama talked a lot in those 15 months, and yet there were only two words he truly needed to win: "hope" and "change."

..." (Spiegel On-Line International (Germany))