President-elect Obama takes phone calls from world leaders in Chicago, Illinois.- ap

Barack Obama's whirlwind ascendancy to the presidency from relative obscurity four years ago is a watershed in United States and world history. Obama's comic-book popularity is significant because of his grass-roots appeal.

His rock-star status and captive oratory draw hundreds of thousands at rallies and speeches. The tear glands of otherwise stoic men and women gush. The young and the restless - the cellphone-savvy generation which spends more time browsing YouTube and Facebook than watching cable news networks - have been inspired to believe in a basketball-playing homie who has both a fine intellect and a common touch.

But Obama's worldwide acclaim - from the college campuses of First-World Europe to the shantytowns of Kenya - will soon be dampened by the harsh challenges of the real world.

The euphoria of an Obama honeymoon could soon translate into the heartache of a bad marriage. His post-racial flavour and message of change may have wooed an American electorate disenchanted by two expensive wars and a shaky economy but he stands to inherit a broken empire. As Obama supporter, film-maker Spike Lee, has said, the campaign was a picnic, now comes the tough challenge of governance.

charisma

A 'change' message is always attractive. It makes people believe again. However, the charisma that characterises such milestone movements often flatters to deceive. Ukraine's Viktor Yushchenko, riding a wave of popularity in the Orange Revolution three years ago, swept into power with a wind of expectation at his back. Three years on, public confidence is at a nadir. The revolution was a hollow promise.

Closer home, Jamaicans know too well about the rhetoric of change and deflated hopes. Michael Manley's speechmaking prowess is renowned. Crowds were wowed by his style and substance. But his democratic socialism platform widened the national divide and wrecked the Jamaican economy in the '70s. The similarly charismatic Portia Simpson Miller and the more philosophical Bruce Golding, the current prime minister, have excelled in energising their respective bases but have done little to engineer real change.

Simpson Miller's mass appeal and Golding's professorial posture have proven to be, as Shakespeare said, "full of sound and fury, signifying nothing". Even after 18 years of lacklustre leadership by the People's National Party, Golding's slim victory, and his administration's so-so first year in office, have done little to inspire. True, two planks of his party's election campaign - tuition-free secondary education and free public health care - have been implemented, but a heavy cloud of political cynicism has set in. The finger-pointing and it's-not-our-fault clamour are no longer resonating nationwide.

History's failures baulk at the prospect of Obama's optimism. His lyrical speeches will not have the soporific effect on the big bullies halfway across the world. Coinciding with the Obama victory, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev issued a scathing rebuke of US foreign policy.

russian missiles deployment

Russia, on Wednesday morning, announced the deployment of missiles in a Baltic enclave to counter the US plan to install a missile-defence system in Eastern Europe, which the Kremlin views as America's overreach into its geopolitical domain. The world may in months see that the left-leaning Obama doctrine gradually becomes more centrist in trying to leash a de facto Putin regime determined to expand and entrench its influence in a mad march to dominance.

The other major antagonist in the Obama drama will be Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the idiosyncratic Iranian president who takes morbid pleasure in grating American and Israeli sensibilities with headline-grabbing insults. A nuclearised Iran will further destabilise a Middle East which has the US already too stretched militarily.

Yet, Obama's greatest challenge will be domestic - resuscitating an economy suffering from the triple shock of credit constipation, record foreclosures and job losses. The legacy of outgoing President George W. Bush, the lynchpin of the Obama victory, will on January 20 become a millstone around his neck.

Despite the monumental moment and vast international goodwill, this is perhaps the toughest time for any man - more so a black man - to claim the White House as his home. The Obama mantra, 'Yes, We Can', will crash into the cold, harsh headwind of 'No, You Can't'. The world awaits the clash of ideologies. The world awaits President Obama.

Email comments to andre.wright@gleanerjm.com or columns @gleaner.com.