BARACK OBAMA deserves to win the United States presidential election tomorrow because he is temperamentally more prepared and able than John McCain for the immense challenges of the next four years, has the better policies to meet them, and has undoubtedly won the crucial arguments over this long campaign. The election concerns the rest of the world nearly as much as the United States, considering its impact on international political and economic wellbeing. In a time of profound change, Mr Obama would be better able than Mr McCain to give leadership and respond to the critical views about the US role that have swelled up over the last eight years.
Whoever wins tomorrow faces a daunting domestic and international agenda. It is dominated by the financial and economic crisis that has engulfed the last months of George Bush's administration and which will continue to preoccupy the new president. Already his successor's policies have been framed by the sheer expense of rescuing the US banking system and preventing the economic recession tipping over into a 1930s-style depression. A failure on either count will indelibly mark the victor's next four years - and so will a successful effort to tackle them.
Mr Obama is pledged to maintain the cross-party re-regulatory measures already taken on the financial issues. He is intellectually and politically more in tune with current needs on these issues than his opponent. On the economy Mr Obama's policies of redistributing taxation, stimulating consumer demand, renewing technological innovation and alternative energy, and reforming healthcare and education are also more appropriate and enjoy greater popular support.
Mr Obama has amply demonstrated his command of these policies and an ability to learn and adapt to rapid change in the last three weeks as the crisis unfolded. He deserves the opportunity to lead on them if he is elected. This would involve a huge effort to communicate his policies and explain the constraints on implementing his programme. Hopes and expectations of his supporters, including in a probable Democratic majority Congress, would have to be tempered by budgetary realities. Mr Obama has deftly gratified many special industrial, agricultural and trading interests in his pursuit of power and would now have to show he can keep his distance from them if elected.
The same abilities to lead, communicate and listen sympathetically would be required in conducting US foreign policy. The US has lost much of its influence over Mr Bush's eight years. The new president cannot hope to retrieve that fully and will be resisted if he tries to restore US primacy. The world expects a much more co-operative approach in recasting international institutions, but should realise that US interests will predominate, whoever wins. Mr Obama wants to get out of Iraq, but he is committed to fight on in Afghanistan and is pledged not to weaken US military predominance. Despite his lack of experience he has also emerged as the better foreign policy candidate.