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Obama: a triumph foretold

LONDON: Nearly three years ago, October 17, 2005, to be precise, a leading British Left-wing journal, New Statesman, picked up 10 people from around the world who, it predicted, would “change the world.” And guess who was on the top of the list? Barack Obama.

At the time, Mr Obama had been in the Senate for barely a few months and was still struggling for name-recognition outside his own country. He himself was severely self-deprecating, saying he was simply a “skinny guy from the South Side with a funny name.”

But in Washington’s “beltway,” Mr. Obama was already seen as America’s fastest-rising political star.

Or as the New Statesman put it, he was the “hottest ticket in town; a political rock star for the Democrats… courted by the media, swooned over by Georgetown hostesses and widely predicted to be heading for high office, perhaps even the highest office of all.”

There was, however, one important detail was wrong. Noting that Mr. Obama was cooperating “closely” with his senior fellow-Democratic Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, it asked: “Might that be a clue to the identity of her running mate when she runs for the presidency in 2008?”

In the event, history chose to play it the other way round with Ms. Clinton now seeming likely to end up as Mr. Obama’s running mate for November polls.

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