A Black Man in White House: What an idea, sirji!

 Millions of Americans woke up on Wednesday morning in joyous disbelief, with something like that familiar line in an Indian ad ringing in their heads: The first ever African-American president of the United States -- What an idea!

As recently as two years ago, most pundits acknowledge, that same idea sounded improbable, even preposterous. No one outside the core group of well-heeled white anglo-saxon men had come remotely close to the White House in 234 years. So what chance of a first-term senator of two years standing and bi-racial origin who had 'lucked' his way to Washington DC at age 46?

He wasn't even given a chance against Hillary Clinton in the primaries. Talking head wisdom said there would be a woman in the White House before a black man got there. He was lucky enough to be a senator, one of only half dozen African-American senators in the country's history.

That the black man bidding for the presidency was a political minnow with Hussein as a middle name and a last name that sounded like Osama made it even more unlikely. Just six years ago, as a state senator from Illinois, he did not even have a pass to enter the Democratic convention; before that, he couldn't rent a car at the airport because his credit card was maxed out.

There were ugly rumours of his Muslim background, his connection to unsavoury characters, even of his nationality and his patriotism. There were also his experiments with marijuana and cocaine during his wasteful days.

But the pundits hadn't reckoned with an intuitive political genius with a flair for powerful oratory and building bridges. He had turned adversity to advantage, growing up suddenly with the realization that his elite degrees from Columbia and Harvard could be put to better use than latching on to high paying jobs in corporate America. Now he brought all the savvy the world's finest school taught him to the political arena and hired the best talent to build a grassroots movement that people are only now beginning to understand and admire.

In the end, Barack Obama rode the perfect storm of anti-incumbency discontent, the hunger for change, and an America in social and demographic transition to fashion the most incredible electoral victory, the scope and scale of which will be discussed for decades. His most remarkable feat was to transcend racial barriers. Although he openly identified himself as an African-American or black, his politics was not aimed at solely the black electorate, like most African-American politicians tend to do.

Instead, he reached out to the new America, and this kaleidoscopic multi-hued nation, where the current white majority will be a minority by 2042 (and the current minority will be a majority) responded like never before. The Republicans tried to subtly stir up the racial angle, speaking about "real America" and "pro-America parts of the country," thinly disguised euphemisms for white support. It didn't work. They missed the change; the real America was a new America and it was not just white.

Even as recently as a few weeks back, as polls showed Obama powering ahead, talk of victory was weighed down with concern over a possible Bradley Effect -- a scenario where white voters would hold back from supporting Obama despite promising to do so. It turned out to be a false alarm. "Some Bradley Effect, huh?" grunted Republican pundit William Bennett. "The country has grown up."