KEY POINTS:
When Time magazine nominated Barack Obama as man of the year readers could be forgiven for thinking the award somewhat premature, too much too soon. Sure, he fought a mighty campaign to win the top job in his country and the world, but he has yet to slip into the chair behind the big desk in the Oval Office, therefore his main challenge - the defining task of his life - has not even begun in a formal sense.
And yet just getting to the point at which he could undertake that challenge was an outstanding achievement in itself. It was not so long ago that the election of someone with Obama's background would have been unthinkable in America.
However he handles the daunting task before him, whatever his successes and failures, we can be sure that in future the shorthand versions of history will note him as the first black President. That simple fact will be seen as a marker of a profound shift for the better in attitudes in the United States.
But in the present there are more urgent and pressing issues that define Obama's contribution to 2008. He set out to shine the bright light of hope in the gathering gloom of a great country which seemed to be losing confidence in itself and its ideals as it was weighed down by the consequences of an economic crisis and a debilitating war. And shine that light he did.
You would have to go back a long way to find a leader who could match his ability to inspire. Everyone sensed it as he sounded a deep chord in the American psyche. His light shone all the more brightly when compared to the man who will soon be his predecessor. Nothing shows up the difference more than the contrast between Obama's soaring oratory one the one hand and George W. Bush's stumbling, fractured verbiage on the other.
The big question now is whether Obama has the political and organisational skills to fulfil the sense of hope that his bold oratory kindled in his fellow Americans.
That question will not begin to be answered until he moves into the Oval Office, a moment that cannot come too soon even though, from an American perspective, he has acted swiftly and decisively to form a Cabinet.
Promising though this is, there is good reason to be concerned at the length of time it is taking for the baton of government to be passed.
From a New Zealand perspective, which had an election in the same week as the United States and has had a new Government in place for nearly two months, a transition of power taking three months seems unreasonable in the best of times and bordering on reckless in times of global crisis such as we face now.
All the more so as the incumbent is a classic lame duck, burdened by a threadbare legacy and hesitatingly trying to second guess what his successor might do.
At times like this clear leadership is what is required, not an extended period with the once and future leaders co-existing in an uneasy relationship while the bad economic news floods in.
When Obama takes the oath next month he will be facing not so much a sea of troubles as two great oceans. Abroad, respect for the United States is at its lowest in living memory. At home the economic crisis is said to be the worst since the Great Depression and getting worse by the day.
Despite the enormous goodwill he brings with him to the White House, he is sure to be severely tested in his first months in office, not only by the economic crisis, but by America's enemies.
That's when we will see the beginnings of an answer to the big question.
