President elect Barack Obama is nothing if not eloquent. When he said he felt fortuitous wind blowing in his back, he was describing reality. Everything went his way from an economic tsunami to the death of his grandmother. The opposite was true of McCain whose convention was disrupted by none other than a hurricane. Perhaps this was enough to convince Americans to jump with only the thin net of his ambition to break their fall.

But there was something more fundamental at play and everybody understood it at least in the gut level. Justifiably or not, Obama came to represent all those who did not feel themselves to be part of the white establishment. That, by the way, included Jews as well as Muslims, Indians, Chinese, Hispanics etc. All of them walk this morning straighter, prouder. And that is a good thing.

May fortuitous winds continue to aid him. For when all is said and done, in a democracy, vox populi is vox dei and I, for one, would not wish to change it. He is about to be not only my president but the most powerful man in the world. As Jane Austen mused in another context,"how much good or evil can be done by" him. For all our sakes, I wish him God speed.

Just consider these responses:

In the small Japanese town of Obama, hula dancers, ecstatic chanting and rock'n'roll greeted the election triumph. Obama means"small shore" in Japanese and many in the small fishing town of 32,000 people chanted Obama's name and his slogan,"Yes, we can!".