Tough choices as Barack Obama seeks re-election

In 2004, a young snazzy, fast-talking senator from crime-infested Chicago won the hearts and minds of an entire planet when he dismissed those pitching against his chances by pointing at his off-white skin colour telling his critics: “There is not a liberal America and a conservative America — there is the United States of America. There is not a black America and a white America and Latino America and Asian America — there’s the United States of America.”

He made powerful arguments about a new America, a brave new world, chose to go against the military-industrial monolith and swore to bring back every last US soldier serving in Iraq.