The battle was a marathon, but the sight of the winning post kick-started political excitement as two men fought to make history. America’s first black president or its oldest, writes Shirley Tart

At exactly 4am our time today, Barack Obama raced through the pain barrier to the White House. John McCain made a gracious and generous speech conceding victory.

The Rev Jesse Jackson wept in the street. Martin Luther King’s vision was realised. An hour later, the new first family walked into the future on a Chicago stage and President elect Barack Obama spoke. 

But during this long and tough campaign, how significant has the female factor been? 

Hillary Clinton, the senator for New York might have pulled off a staggering double as the first woman president and the first wife of a former president to win in her own right. Obama denied her that. 

But she and hubby Bill swung behind him, surely a government prize awaits her.

Scary Sarah’s sudden appearance on the arm of the Republican’s John McCain to make him seem younger and the party cooler, horrified many people, who realised the gun-toting, creationist, hockey mom from Alaska would be a heartbeat away from the Oval Office.

Then what did we learn of Cindy McCain? 

Apart from her nodding, smiling and applauding behind her husband’s right shoulder night after night, not a lot.

But on You Tube, I found a video of former beauty queen Cindy with seven McCain kids, talking about being part of the “American conversation” and feeling the hand of Abraham Lincoln on her shoulder.

And so to Michelle. 

I watched Barack’s handsome wife, mother to their two little girls, speak with awesome authority a few weeks ago. 

She’s nobody’s fool and as First Lady, will be nobody’s pushover.

Today, her husband called her “the love of my life” and promised his girls a puppy for the White House. 

My US election experiences add up to sleeping in the presidential suite at a Los Angeles hotel when Ronnie Reagan was governor of California, being penned in St Louis airport as Air Force One flew in President George Bush senior, and visiting America just as Bill Clinton was being swept into power.

Now even from shores afar, Barack and Michelle herald a new, exciting dawn.