The Obama victory: What does it mean?

Sen. Barack Obama has been elected the 44th president of the United States. It is worth pausing a moment just to digest that reality.

A very liberal, 47-year-old rookie senator with no military background - who is not only black but has a last name eerily similar to the man who masterminded the 9/11 attacks and a middle name identical to that of the man whose country we foolishly invaded in response to those attacks - is about to assume the nation's highest elected office. Three years ago, an aspiring screenwriter peddling a script with this story line would have been laughed out of every studio in Hollywood.

But rub your eyes and cue "Hail to the Chief," for here he comes: President Barack Hussein Obama.

What does Mr. Obama's victory mean?

It means that America has shown the world yet again it is capable of the improbable, the transformational: A majority-white country has elected a nonwhite president. Having traveled this year to speak about our elections in a diverse quartet of countries - Brazil, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and South Africa - I can assure you that people in all four were both rooting overwhelmingly for Mr. Obama and fully convinced the American people were incapable of electing him because of his race.

Putting identity politics aside, Mr. Obama's election also signals that America is poised for a long-overdue leftward correction to the feckless policies and reckless politics prosecuted by the modern conservative movement. To see that, compare the two finalists from both parties in this year's presidential race with those from eight years ago.

In 2000, the Republicans chose the conservative George W. Bush over John McCain, and the Democrats chose the (then, at least) more conservative Al Gore over Bill Bradley. Though the popular vote went the other way, in the general election, Americans took the more base-oriented Republican over the more centrist Democrat.

This year witnessed the inverse: Democrats narrowly opted for the more liberal Mr. Obama over Sen. Hillary Clinton, while Republicans opted for the more liberal Mr. McCain over Mike Huckabee, among others. But this time, the public seems likely to choose the base-oriented Democrat over the Republican centrist, thereby propelling the Democrats to what should be their fourth national popular vote victory in the past five presidential cycles.