America has just completed the most radical political about-turn in its recent history by electing Barack Obama, write German media commentators. He won't be able to fulfil all the hopes being pinned on him, but he has the stature to unite America and reinvigorate the nation, they say.
America has reinvented itself by choosing Barack Obama as its new president in an election that has fanned enormous expectations in America and around the world, write German media commentators.
Living up to all those hopes, is an impossible task, but the commentators believe he may be able to unite America by reaching out to religious conservatives who didn't vote for him, and that he could invigorate a country riven by self-doubt as a result of foreign wars and economic decline.
The center-left Süddeutsche Zeitung writes:
"The 44th president of the United States has made history before he has even taken office. Few election nights have delivered so much emotion, and such honest, deeply felt relief and joy. America is rid of a burden. The country will wake up in the morning of Nov. 5 in the certainty that it has renewed itself, that it has achieved what must be the most radical political about-turn in it recent history, and that it has done so of its own accord. And that countless opportunities for internal healing and reconciliation with the world have now opened up."
"The biggest achievement of the new president is that the campaign didn't center on him, Barack Obama, but on America's rediscovery of its political calling. Democracy has returned to a country beset by doubt. "Yes we can!" isn't just an election slogan. "Yes we can!" is a battle cry for a nation that can feel its decline."
"The expectations are so great, and the benchmarks he has set himself are so demanding that Barack Obama will have to develop Herculean powers. The election campaign was only a feeble overture compared with the four years he now faces. Obama will be helped by the fact that there is huge readiness to change. America has reinvented itself, and now the world is waiting for the new president."
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