"I am not Bush," John McCain barked last week, in a frustrated acknowledgment that he was battling not his Democratic rival but his Republican President. Yet, in exit polls, a surprising 60 per cent of respondents said their vote was for Obama, not against Bush.
That is both the reward, and challenge, of exquisite oratory -- talking up a great game, in words that cannot be equalled, will get you a legion of enthusiastic voters. But the election is over, the party is over, and America will wake to the happy expectation that all their problems will disappear simply because they have done their bit and voted in the apostle of change.
The problem with raising expectations is this: If you match them, you have done no more than was expected of you; if you fail in even one, your admirers will see it as a personal betrayal. Beware the fury of an electorate fooled.
Image: Outgoing US President George W Bush arrives at the White House after a weekend trip to Camp David in Washington, DC.
Photograph: Kevin Dietsch-Pool/Getty Images
Also read: Birth of a new nation
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