Barack Hussein Obama - The Presumptive Democratic Nominee

Barack Obama finally stood alone as the presumptive Democratic Party nominee for the presidency of the United States.  There is nothing more I can add to what has already been said by many about the historical significance of this moment, except that the US is one more step closer to maybe saving itself.

Although the final collective sigh of relief by people around the world may have to wait until Nov 4th, here is a sample of the reaction from around the world regarding Obama's victory.

"I've just watched him on television, and as a family we are very happy. Really, it is something that is a trendsetter," the politician's uncle, Said Obama, told The Associated Press from the port city of Kisumu in western Kenya.

In Mexico City, hairdresser Susan Mendoza's eyes lit up when she learned Obama had clinched the nomination. "Bush was for the elite. Obama is of the people," she said.

Michael Cox, a professor of international relations at the London School of Economics, said Obama's win "has sent out a lot of positive signals around the world." "He has a very appealing persona — elegant, fluent, strings lots of sentences together into paragraphs," Cox said. "But in terms of (his) actual policies towards the Middle East, Iraq, Iran, China, Europe — actually, we don't know."

The German government's coordinator on U.S. relations, Karsten Voigt, said many Germans "find (Obama's) mixture of Martin Luther King and John F. Kennedy very attractive."

Jean-Marc Damier a 39-year-old man from the Paris suburbs who works in marketing, said Obama's relative lack of experience could be an asset. "The candidate's freshness can only do good, because the way things have been done before created a mess," he said.

The Times of London, which proclaimed in a headline that "Obama waits on the threshold of history," said in an editorial that Obama's campaign "has rekindled America's faith in its prodigious powers of reinvention — and the world's admiration for America."

Ngo Van Hung, a Vietnamese real-estate salesman, said Obama "seems to be a peace lover. He would have a better understanding of how to treat people of different nationalities and different countries."

Jorge Serguera, a 70-year-old retiree in Havana, said he thought that, if elected, Obama would work to loosen Washington's nearly 50-year-old trade embargo against Cuba. Obama is "a thinking man of ethics and ideals," he said. "Bush's leaving will let Cuba rest a bit after eight years."

Of course, understandably, there were some skeptics as well.  

"The upcoming president, whether he is black or white, would have the same policy," said Tarek Abdullah, an Egyptian store vendor. "Their Middle East policy and their policies towards Muslims in general will always be the same." 

Read the full story here.

In the mean time, what has Obama been up to since he clinched the nomination?  Well, a couple of things that stand out are:

First - he has pledged not to accept any donations from lobbyists and PAC's (Political Action Committees).  This is one step forward in taking money out of politics.   

Second - in what some reporters described as a very dramatic moment, Barack Obama apparently '' talked " to Joe Lieberman in private, the former Democrat now Independent Senator, about his criticism of Obama's Israel policy. 

This is a scene right out of 48 Hours.  The only thing missing was the cowboy hat and the toothpick. Look out Washington, there's a new Sheriff in town, and his name is not Reggie Hammond; it's Barack Obama!  I love it!