The people of New Hampshire believe that they have seen it all when it comes to presidential hopefuls. Then, yesterday, they saw Barack Obama.

If anybody doubted the talent and charisma of a man who has become an American political phenomenon in the blink of an eye, it took 20 minutes in the Granite State yesterday for Mr Obama to show why so many of his fellow Democrats believe that America might be witnessing the emergence of a very different and very special politician, and possibly, its first black president.

They are a hard sell in New Hampshire. Since the state gained first-in-the-nation primary status, hundreds of White House hopefuls have made the pilgrimage to this tiny, overwhelmingly white corner of New England, where presidential hopes are often dashed. Then in ambled the lanky frame of Mr Obama, 45, who has spent less than two years in the US Senate as its junior member from Illinois, for a speech and book signing in Portsmouth. He was greeted by a 1,000-strong crowd, two standing ovations, an explosion of photographers’ flashes — and that was before he reached the lectern.

The speech that followed, centered on his book The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts of Reclaiming the American Dream proved that he is without peer among US politicians in connecting with, and inspiring, a crowd. He was funny, smart, and did not talk down to his audience.

There is also the matter of his strange name: Barack Hussein Obama. He is the first to point out that, with a first name that rhymes with Iraq, a second belonging to its former dictator, and a third that rhymes with Osama, he has already defied political gravity.

Like his book, Mr Obama’s theme was that the partisanship and bickering of American politics was failing its citizens. We are at a moment, he said, when the country was hungry to solve its serious challenges “not as Democrats, not as Republicans, but as Americans”.

He appears comfortable in his own skin, and talking about his Christian faith. In October he turned American politics upside down when he confessed ambitions for the White House in 2008 and his visit to the proving grounds of New Hampshire now show that he is increasingly likely to make a run.

He ended by quoting Martin Luther King: “The arc of the world bends toward justice, and that is what America is hungry for now.” The expectations thrust upon a man who two years ago was an obscure local politician in Springfield, Illinois, have reached the absurd. Time magazine’s Joe Klein, who worries that Mr Obama is becoming risk-averse and policy-light, still calls him “the political equivalent of a rainbow — a sudden preternatural event inspiring awe and ecstasy”.

There is a also a nervousness among Democrats that Hillary Clinton is unelectable, and that Mr Obama is the party’s saviour. He poses a threat to her, appealing to liberals on Iraq (he opposed the war, she did not), and black voters, part of her political base.

He has also generated such enormous hype because although he is black, his ancestors were not slaves. He seems to transcend race. He is almost obsessive about reaching out to Republicans, despite a very liberal voting record.

The son of a Kenyan economist (a Muslim who began life as a goatherder) and a white woman from Kansas, Mr Obama’s parents were divorced when he was 2. He was raised in Hawaii by his grandparents, graduated from Harvard, became a civil rights lawyer and law professor in Chicago, before entering politics.

However, he has never been politically tested and will surely face closer scrutiny. His lack of foreign policy experience is a problem, although Mr Obama argues that one of the most experienced Cabinets in US history propelled the country into the disaster of Iraq.

But right now, he has America abuzz. “At their core Americans are a decent people,” he said yesterday. “And there is a sense of hope that people can change this country together.”

Milestones

August 4, 1961 Born in Hawaii to Barack Obama Sr, a Kenyan economics student, and American student Ann Dunham

1983 Graduated from Columbia University

1985 Moved to Chicago to work for a church-based group

1991 Graduated from Harvard Law School, where he was the first black president of the Harvard Law Review

1995 Reveals that he smoked marijuana and took cocaine during his teenage years

1996 Elected to Illinois state senate

2005 Becomes the fifth black senator in US history and is the only serving black senator August 2006 Official visit to Kenya with wife and two daughters. Condemns ethnic rivalries in Kenya, visits father’s birthplace and takes HIV test

Source: US Senate website, PA

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