In white-dominated America, Barack Obama is as un-American as you can get. Yet this 48-year-old first-time senator of African descent has emerged as a strong contender for the U.S. presidential election in November 2008. He won the Iowa Democratic primary, and nearly defeated Hillary Clinton in New Hampshire. Obama’s ‘myth’ and message have captured the imagination of millions of Americans of all colours and races, especially the youth. His grandmother still lives in a hut in Kenya, and when he delivers his powerful one-liners in repetitious cadence in a baritone voice, they have the mystique of African music and dance.

What caught my attention was an interesting explanation for Obama’s popularity, given by Joe Klein, Time magazine’s celebrated columnist. “Young Americans are rooting for him because Obama is campaigning in poetry whereas Hillary is campaigning in prose.” To know what this means, read Obama’s riveting campaign speeches, especially the one he delivered after he lost to Clinton in New Hampshire.

He said: “Yes, we can heal this nation. Yes, we can repair this world. Yes, we can.” I urge every serious-minded Indian politician to read that speech, about which the anchorperson of MSNBC had this to say: “If anybody in America has heard a better speech in modern American political history, please email me.”

Campaigning in poetry is not about using nice-rhyming phrases provided by admen working on fat contracts. It’s about delivering a message of hope and inspiration, of igniting inherent idealism among the people, and of one’s personal commitment and determination to change the existing state of affairs. If Obama is connecting with young voters in spite of the pigment of his skin, it is because he is promising them, with trasparent conviction, that he will withdraw America from Bush’s hopeless war in Iraq, curb corporate greed, improve the living conditions of poor and middle-class Americans, and re-unite a deeply divided American society.

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