Obama is the Kennedy of a new generation. I have strong personal memories of the Kennedy election in 1960 that took a Roman Catholic to the White House for the first time. As early as January and February of this year, starting before Super Tuesday on February 5, I was discussing the comparison between the Obama and Kennedy campaigns.

On February 18 I wrote: “It is hard to see who can stop Senator Barack Obama becoming the next president of the United States. He has built up an excitement such as no candidate has created since President Kennedy in 1960.” Hillary Clinton tried to stop him and she failed. The Republican candidate, Senator John McCain, is a fine man, but he will not wage as forceful a campaign as Senator Clinton.

In 1960 I was still in my early 30s, a young journalist who felt the need for a new and more imaginative politics for our generation. In Britain, the Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan, was overplaying his role of the tired old man; in Washington, President Eisenhower was out playing golf - no new hope was going to come from the Republicans or their young champion, Richard Nixon. As Milton observed: “The hungry sheep look up, and are not fed.” In 1960 I was one of the hungry sheep.

I also shared the Irish-American background of the Kennedys. My mother's family were Irish-American Roman Catholics; I wanted John F.Kennedy to prove that a Roman Catholic could be elected president of the United States, just as black voters now want Barack Obama to prove that an African American be elected president. For me, that connection generated loyalty and admiration for John F.Kennedy.

Kennedy was himself an excellent speaker, but Obama is an even better one. He had a warmer voice and better natural rhythms of speech. Kennedy's Boston accent sounded more elitist; he broke up his sentences into little chunks, which interrupted his flow.

Obama combines the reflective with the declamatory; he has managed to use the black rhythms, which remind one of orators such as Martin Luther King, while avoiding the exaggeration of some black preachers. Indeed, his tone of thoughtful moderation enabled him to diminish the impact of some foolish remarks by his own old preacher.

Of course, it is still possible that some scandal, or some disaster, will interrupt his campaign. I doubt if there are any substantial concealed scandals; if there were, the Clinton “attack dogs” would probably have found them. A trivial misjudgment may still occur, but it would take more than an unpaid parking ticket to derail Obama's momentum.

I have been very impressed by Senator Obama's book, The Audacity of Hope. I agree with the judgment of The Washington Post that the publishers quote on the cover. “In our low-down, dispiriting era, Obama's talent for proposing humane, sensible solutions with uplifting, elegant prose, does fill one with hope.” That hope is not just for the United States, but for the American influence on the world.

I was particularly interested by the author's choice of John F.Kennedy's inaugural address to define some of the aims of his own foreign policy. In 1961 Kennedy said: “To those people in the huts and villages of half the globe struggling to break the bonds of mass misery, we pledge our best efforts to help them help themselves, for whatever period is required - not because the Communists may be doing it, not because we seek their votes, but because it is right. If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich.”

I have heard too many political speeches not to distrust political rhetoric.

Kennedy's inaugural address was delivered nearly 48 years ago, since which time the tired old world has not become any less tired or cynical, and poverty has not been abolished.

Yet I believed then that Kennedy was sincere in what he was urging, and I believe now that Senator Obama is sincere. He is obviously a very good politician - he would not have won the Democratic nomination against the Clinton machine if he had been a novice or an amateur. However, I believe he is a sincere idealist; that is the type of American president the world needs at present.

During the primary campaign, one had to be impressed by Hillary Clinton's sheer resilience. She was rowing against the tide. She showed a physical and mental stamina that was quite astonishing. She never gave up - even now she has not transferred her delegates. She is a very remarkable woman, but I do not think that she can possibly be chosen as the vice-presidential candidate on the Obama ticket.

There are two reasons for this. The first, and most important, is that the Obama campaign has to belong to Senator Obama. He is not an extreme liberal, but he is trying to create a new Democratic politics that will change the way that the world sees the United States and the way that Americans see themselves.

The second reason is that the Clintons are the Clintons, and will always have their own agenda. Hillary Clinton came much too close to the racist issue to be trusted as Barack Obama's vice-presidential candidate in the campaign. Clintons do not adapt easily to a secondary role. Bill, as the vice-president's consort, would not just be baggage for Obama, but baggage known to carry cluster bombs.

The person I feel most sympathy for is the Republican Senator John McCain. He is an honest and courageous man who should have been elected president in 2000. Now he has to carry the record of the Bush presidency as his baggage.

That, and his age, may be insuperable handicaps. Like Hillary in the primaries, McCain has to row against the tide. It is Obama, like John F.Kennedy, who has the momentum of history.

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