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'America Is Ready for Change'

Clinton advisers have said she will bow out of the hard-fought race on Saturday. While the news pleases the millions of Obamanaics here, German commentators don't think Obama is in the clear yet.

The next stage in the battle for the United States presidency is at the doorstep. Hillary Clinton has said she will bow out of the race for the Democratic nomination on Saturday and marshall her supporters behind Barack Obama as he moves on to face John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee.

For Obama, the news is less cause for celebration than relief. “Now that the interfamily squabble is done,” Mr. Obama said Wednesday evening, “all of us can focus on what needs to be done in November.”

In Germany, relief is mixed with joy. Obama has been wildly popular with Germans, especially since his underdog performance on Super Tuesday that launched four months of intense, spectator-friendly dueling with Clinton. In fact, according to a recently released poll conducted by the Internet portal of the London-based Daily Telegraph, 67 percent of Germans back Obama for the presidency (as opposed to the meager 6 percent pulling for McCain).

Newspaper headlines across the country advertised the excitement. "Historic Victory for Barack Obama" crossed the top of Die Welt. The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung splashed "America's Moment" on its front page. The Berliner Zeitung optimistically proclaimed "Obama on his Way to the White House." And rather tastelessly -- one of the head editors called it "satire" -- Die Tageszeitung ran a large photo of the White House with the superimposed headline "Uncle Barack's Cabin."

Between the lines of their euphoria, German commentators seem to harbor considerable anxiety about the future role Clinton will play now that she is stepping down and the very real prospect of a President McCain.

The center-left Süddeutsche Zeitung writes:

"America wants change, and Obama and Clinton can make it happen. But to do it, they need to quickly get past their rivalry, and Clinton must get behind him and acknowledge that he's in charge. The party, the country and her reputation would be best served if she didn't make her support contingent upon being promised the vice presidency. An Obama-Clinton duo would cause more harm than good. Barack Obama is the winner, but he is not the president yet."

The center-right Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung writes:

"America is ready for a change and possibly even for a historic transformation … But regardless who gets elected president in November, the change is not going to be as earth-shattering as people expect. ... If Obama wins the election, the amount of disenchantment is going to be high for the very fact that the candidate's tone is so lofty … He speaks in an almost biblical manner of the (uninsured) ill who finally need to be helped, of the unemployed who must now be given a way of earning their daily bread and of the ocean waters -- he hasn't promised to part the seas, but he is promising to stop their rise in a climate that is changing globally. But America isn't so close to the precipice now that it would rescue a determined political Messiah from a fall. In the day to day political reality, things move far more slowly and laboriously than in high-minded stump speeches."

"In terms of foreign policy, there won't be a major shift under McCain or Obama -- not even a rapid withdrawal of American soldiers from Iraq. But America will be prepared to lend an ear to its allies and will also seek greater cooperation with its partners and competitors. It will also demand greater burden sharing in Afghanistan. In an age of globalized opportunties and threats, America won't just withdraw from the world like a turtle in its shell."

In the Hamburg weekly newspaper Die Zeit, journalist Josef Joffe writes:

"The zeitgeist is blowing for Obama -- even if not as strongly in Asia, Africa and Latin America as it is in Western Europe. But an optical illusion may be influencing our opinions: the comforting idea that the real problem is George W. Bush and not America. Out with cowboys and in with change and hope, and then we'll be able to love America once again."

"So, why is this a mental delusion? First, because anti-Americanism is older than the younger Bush. Second, because Obama (probably) comes, but the superpower stays. America, this modern steam hammer of a nation, is fundamentally a destroyer."

"In Old Europe, we'd prefer to take things a bit easier -- and, no wonder, after all the catastrophes of the 20th century. And that's why we don't want (what former German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder once described in his election campaign as) 'American conditions." We also don't want any American demands about reinforcing the military in Afghanistan or hard sanctions against Iran or civilian assistance in Iraq, which both Obama and McCain would request."

"But Obama would have two more strikes against him. His party is playing with fire when it comes to protectionism against goods and people, and that's why Asia and Latin America are so skeptical about the Democrats. And then there's Obama's idealism... But the voting is in America, not in Europe."

The Financial Times Deutschland writes:

"Obama has to integrate Clinton into his campaign, even if it promises to be the most uncomfortable of all marriages of convenience. A privately embittered Hillary Clinton on his side -- in whichever role it might be -- could be a difficult partner for Obama. But he has no choice because having a vengeful Hillary Clinton against him would be even worse."

"Clinton is the one who marshaled her troops, and now she is the only one who can sound the retreat. But she's not going to do that for free. She is after the vice presidency, and that puts Obama in a tight spot from which there's no easy way out. As a vice president, Clinton would never stay in the background."

"Obama also knows that Clinton is not going to keep her voice down. It's going to take a lot of political deftness and goodwill on both sides to integrate this loud voice into a harmonized choir."

The left-leaning Berliner Zeitung writes:

"Many people are mocking Hillary Clinton for the self-important and narcissistic side that she has shown from time to time. But, in a certain way, she is the more transparent candidate, and hardly anyone in American politics has been more closely scrutinized than her. But what do we really know about the character of Barack Obama or what his goals are beyond mere 'change?' Part of his attraction lies in a certain uncertainty. But quite a bit of disenchantment can result when certainty about weaknesses, mistakes and dark corners of his personality emerges. And these are precisely the things that the Republican apparatus has been working to uncover for quite a while."

"The real tragic side to this grand story could reach its climax on Nov. 4 if the winner is John McCain and the third presidency of a Republican in a row starts."

The Stuttgarter Zeitung writes:

"If Germans could vote in America, Barack Obama would become the next US president. His charisma appears to have even greater magnetism in Europe than it does in the States -- especially when he is contrasted against George W. Bush, Germany's favorite enemy."

-- Josh Ward, 1 p.m. CET