Do you ever get that feeling that something really, really important is happening but you just can't remember what it is?

Barack Obama, President of the United States!!!

Well President designate but let's not quibble over details when we're about to see the first black president of any country outside of Africa and the first US president in nearly twenty years to not be named either Bush or Clinton.

To rain on the parade for just a moment and remind the sisterhood that certain hierarchies exist for a reason I think it's important to look at what the world could have won. Ideally I would have liked to see Mugabe step down as Zimbabwean president back in March. Then as the world moved to repair that broken country one of the themes of the election campaign could have been economic globalisation and international development rather then childish squabbles about Sarah Palin's clothes. When the economic crash hit and the price of gold shot up Zimbabwe would have been able to hit the ground running and with America's economy on the rocks there would have been no other choice then to elect the strong, stable, hard as nails hands of John McCain.

During his first term as president McCain would have continued the progressive, free trade policies of his four predecessors. Love them or hate them these policies have been in place for almost thirty years and are now part of our reality. Countries like Argentina, Vietnam and Kenya have all implemented their Economic Structural Adjustment Plans and opened up their markets to More Economically Developed Countries. For America, the worlds largest consumer economy, to move to a protectionist stance now would be to prove every anti-WTO protester right, make every nightmare a reality and make life incredibly difficult for heavily indebted second world countries like Great Britain. Plus the last time a Democratic president was elected during a global economic downturn with a mandate to put up trade barriers and "share the wealth" through increased public spending it was FDR during the Great Depression. That ended up going so badly that some have said America needed the Second World War to sort out that economic disaster.

McCain would also have used his first term to make sure that US troops stayed in Iraq until the job is done which is going to be 2011 at the earliest. Like free trade this war might not be popular but the sad fact of the matter is that the US did invade Iraq in 2003 so to pull out too soon would at best be an unforgivable insult to the Iraqi people. At worst it could totally destabilise the entire middle east region pitting Iranian back Shia factions against Sunni and Kurdish factions. This could well lead to Turkey and Europe being dragged into the mess, Israel being wiped off the map and America being attacked by Islamic terrorists again and again.

All the while McCain was leaning into the yoke of office and doing what needed to be done Obama would have had to take a loss back to his own party and face down rabid Hillary supporters. Spending the next four years having to fight for the nomination without the wind of invincibility at his back would certainly season Obama up a bit and allow them Democrats to finally bury the dead ideologies of Feminism and Marxism which have been holding the American left back for so long. Then if he was good enough and won the nomination again Obama would face up to a distinctly elderly McCain in 2012 and more then likely win a presidency facing far fewer problems then it is facing now. Plus it would mean that the inevitable 2014 Arab-Israeli peace talks would then happen in the middle of Obama's two terms rather then at the end. This could only make it more likely that those talks would be the success they've never quite managed.

None of that though is meant to spoil the celebrations because hey, America's just elected it's first black president with the largest voter turn out in history and that President looks like he could shape up into something very, very good so how can today be anything else but a great day!