EIGHTEEN PRESIDENTIAL elections have taken place in the United States since Franklin Delano Roosevelt was swept into office promising a New Deal for a country that had spent more than two years mired in the Great Depression and had tired of the inaction of his Republican predecessor, Herbert Hoover.

FDR's actions in office may or may not have achieved his objective of getting the U.S. economy back on track, historians now suggesting the main economic stimulus was the Second World War, but it did succeed to the point where he won another three elections, prompting a constitutional amendment that now limits presidents to two terms in office.

Now, 76 years later, we have what looks remarkably like the first real sequel to the FDR triumph, in the election of Barack Obama as the country's first biracial president.

Although many see the Obama victory as proof that racism is dead in the U.S., we are inclined to think otherwise. As we see it, there was still enough latent racism to have assured John McCain of a victory despite the fact his predecessor as Republican leader, George W. Bush, had one of the lowest approval ratings since Mr. Hoover and Jimmy Carter, both of whom failed in their re-election attempts.

No, what really propelled Mr. Obama into the country's highest office was the economic turmoil that developed in the middle of the election campaign, and Mr. Obama's response to it.

In the circumstances, it will be most interesting to see not only what the new president does, but how it resonates in the media and among the general public.

Some thoughtful comment was offered last Friday by Richard Gwynn, the Toronto Star's senior political columnist.

In the column, he considered whether, in the present circumstances, Mr. Obama would become one of the great U.S. presidents.

"It's entirely possible that Barack Obama will go on to become one of the great presidents of the United States, perhaps even in the same category, if not personally, at the same level as Abraham Lincoln and Franklin D. Roosevelt," he opined.

"He has an opportunity to be great rather than merely good or competent because, as was the case with Lincoln and Roosevelt, he will start his presidency at a time when the United States — mired down in two wars, deeply in debt, struggling to escape from a financial crisis — desperately needs a great leader.

"Being the right person isn't enough in itself, therefore. It's necessary also to be that at the right time."

He went on to observe that Mr. Obama also has specific characteristics of greatness. "He's an outstanding orator and therefore has the ability to inspire people and to mobilize them in some grand cause.

"He's highly intelligent, with a mind as capacious and as quick as that of Bill Clinton. He's exceptionally well organized, as he showed by his unusually smooth and skilled campaigns for the Democrat presidential nomination and for the presidency itself.

"He's also a very cool guy, retaining his calm under almost every circumstance. In fact, this can be an ambiguous quality. Cool can distance him from people, making him seem standoffish and impersonal. But it's a great gift to have during any crisis."

The column went on to observe that it was also possible that he will be a disappointment, noting his lack of experience, particularly when it comes to foreign policy. "He's never run any large organization. His legislative record during his pre-campaign two years in the Senate was worrisomely thin."

Mr. Gwynn reasoned that unless economic conditions improve quickly, the pain and fear that many will be suffering "will quickly sour the nation's mood from today's euphoria."

There would be no easy exit from Iraq, and although most of the world has welcomed the Obama victory ecstatically, and everyone claims to support the multilateralism that he favours, each country would inevitably put its own interests first.

But the president-elect had "already caused people to rise above easy cynicism and to dare again to hope. ... Because of him, relations between blacks and whites in America will never be the same again. From now on there will be a presumption of equality between them even if, as is inevitable, there will still be many racial tensions and setbacks and misunderstandings."

The column concluded with an observation that Mr. Obama has "reminded everyone — both his fellow Americans and the rest of the world — that for all its exceptional faults, and perhaps even because of them, the U.S. possesses unique virtues.

"It possesses virtues that are genuinely great. Most certainly, it now possesses Obama."

It will be interesting, indeed, to see how quickly the new president moves in the areas he has identified as his top priorities, most of which are interrelated: the economic mess, Iraq, health care and tax reform.

Although a quick exit from Iraq might be seen as saving $10 billion a month, that could be largely offset by sending more troops to Afghanistan. And however desperate the need is to provide the universal health care we've enjoyed for four decades, achieving it will be awfully costly.

In the circumstances, he would probably be well advised to ask the Democrat-controlled Congress to restore the tax rates of the Clinton era, which would eventually translate into budget surpluses as the economy improved.

But politicians everywhere dread the word "tax," unless it's followed by "cut."